... Wow.
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Final Fantasy XIII PC |OT| Lightning must not be forgotten
- Thread starter Yoshichan
- Start date
... Wow.
Odin screens as promised.
If you are using ATB Refresh it becomes difficult to not use auto-battle as you spend too much time jumping around.
If you are using ATB Refresh it becomes difficult to not use auto-battle as you spend too much time jumping around.
You won't be attacking with no levels for 20 hours tho, the game introduces new mechanics during that time.
That's not true.
i feel he's been doing his run through courtesy of GeDoSaTo
I really hate those rat whiskers on his face. Someone needs to mod them off or something....
There's a repeat actions command
Teach me the ways. That will help a great deal towards exploiting a weakness or avoiding halved physical damage with Ruin.
Can't unsee now.
thunder_snail
Member
So true, especially with haste buff when playing RAV. Can't remember all the enemy weaknesses and auto-battle takes care of that. Also I find it easier to use auto for SYN and SAB since it seems the game knows which buffs and debuffs are useful for specific battles.
However, using auto-battle for SEN, MED often ends up with disaster for me.
Yoshichan
And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
I've had the flu since the third hour from launch
Great timing huh... All weekend in bed, sweating like a pig, drinking 10 liters of water a day and popping pills like an addict
Sigh.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Choose wathever manual commands you wish, so once you did you can press right on the command menu and choose "repeat", which will repeat the last manual commands you've choosen.
But seriously, auto-battle is faster and better 90% of time and you should go manual only a few particular scenarios.
Once you queue the full bar of actions and have executed them once, hold left(or was it right?) while the cursor is hovering at the abilities button. It will turn to repeat.
Lumpy Onion
Member
Autobattle is definitely more efficient the majority of the time. Especially when trying to get the best battle ratings. But I found "Manual" command entry to be just more satisfying to play the game with. I remember beating the game my first time without even knowing about the super moves (Army of One etc). In my autobattle playthrough I didn't feel like I had much understanding of general abilities. Sure, I was winning them nicely but it didn't feel as hands-on or satisfying.
It wasn't till I started to use Manual that the battle system truly clicked with me. It might seem stressful at times, and not as efficient but manual is the way to go imo. But I usually end up doing a little of both depending on the situation.
It wasn't till I started to use Manual that the battle system truly clicked with me. It might seem stressful at times, and not as efficient but manual is the way to go imo. But I usually end up doing a little of both depending on the situation.
They're a both an ill fit IMO. There's too much going on, too quickly to really effectively manually battle while auto battling turns into an mash a-fest. FFXII got it right interms of cruise control battling.
That aside, with paradigm shifts I really would have just preferred switching out individual characters classes mid battle as opposed to changing the entire parties. The 6 paradigm limit can be kind of annoying at times.
That aside, with paradigm shifts I really would have just preferred switching out individual characters classes mid battle as opposed to changing the entire parties. The 6 paradigm limit can be kind of annoying at times.
If someone wants to use Auto-Battle then there's nothing wrong with it, but you can get more out of the battle system by selecting manual commands / using Repeat. A hypothetical perfect player will use them both; each one has their own advantages.
One of the nice things about FFXIII's battle system is that it's easy-to-learn and hard-to-master
. This is also one of its biggest failings, as it doesn't properly advertise the hard-to-master aspects and players end up thinking "This battle system is just one button" "I'm dying because I'm underleveled / the game is unfair" etc.
One of the nice things about FFXIII's battle system is that it's easy-to-learn and hard-to-master
compared to other not-fully-realtime JRPG battle systems
I disagree that XII got it right. That had it's own set of problems. You were limited by gambit slots so you were constantly swapping them(nor could you save sets of them) and the manual control methods were even more clunky to use than in XIII.
In an ideal world, I'd want XIII's battle system except with added gambits to customise the AI. With more gambit and paradigm slots.
I played the entire game since the beginning picking everything manually and I never found myself struggling to choose stuff during the atb bar timer. Muscle memory I guess, not to mention that it's so much more engaging and efficient imo. Furthermore the AI is too slow in finding out enemies weaknesses when some of them are pretty intuitive and it doesn't take into account animation time and stats.
It's a complete disaster as a Sentinel, Medic and Saboteur too.(ok maybe not a complete disaster but still not good enough).
There are situations as COM/RAV where you could more efficiently juggle between different abilities while the AI only has the pre defined scripts.
If you are complaining about "Omfg this game is just press X" and yet don't manually pick abilities.. It just does not compute in my head...
It's a complete disaster as a Sentinel, Medic and Saboteur too.(ok maybe not a complete disaster but still not good enough).
There are situations as COM/RAV where you could more efficiently juggle between different abilities while the AI only has the pre defined scripts.
If you are complaining about "Omfg this game is just press X" and yet don't manually pick abilities.. It just does not compute in my head...
Lumpy Onion
Member
There is a super secret attack move that only Lightning can use for one battle during the fight against the Havoc Skytank in Chpater 7. And it can only be done using manual entry. If you select attack manually Lightning will use her gunblade as an actual gun to deliver a ranged attack. Wish you could use it again but as far as I know you cannot.
Yeah, the AI could definitely be improved in some ways.
At the same time, I would *much* rather have an AI that is simple and predictable (and does things right in most situations) than an AI that is complex and hard-to-read. I tend to think of the AI in this game as just another mechanic of the battle, kind of like the Chain Gauge, ATB, or anything else like that. Working with the system to achieve the best results is a skill to be mastered by the player. Making the AI work of a handful of simple "if" style rules makes that an attainable goal.
And, in my experience, the AI tends to be pretty good at everything except for SAB (and even then it's okay as long as you work with it). It probably plays SEN better than I would in most situations.
Yeah, that's the only place it's usable in XIII-1, but the Lightning "monsters" in XIII-2 can use it against a bunch of enemies.
If you use libra as soon as you encounter a new enemy, the AI will adapt on the next set of commands.
Syn and Sab are two I definitely did quite a bit of manual controlling though. I rarely controlled a Sen. Infact I didn't really use the role that much until the last few marks, so I can't really comment much on the AI for that.
Lumpy Onion
Member
A cool thing I noticed about autobattle is that when you scroll through the available enemies the list of abilities in the command bar changes. You would actually see that the list of abilities shown changing depending on the condition/type of enemy being selected. It's a nice way to peek into the logic of autobattle. I know it's kind of obvious since it shows up every time you scroll over autobattle, but I never noticed till like my 4th playthrough.
Exactly, and the moves selected for Auto-battle never really failed me.
The Auto Battle is definitely "good enough" for the most part. However.. One does not simply complain about mashing X or lolautobattle while relinquishing manual control. It's so illogical that it creates an explosion in my head. That's what I'm trying to posit here mostly.
The basic skeleton is pretty similar but there a few key differences. For one you have a Pokemon esque system where you can choose a monster as your 3rd party member. You won't a game over if your leader dies and you can switch between leaders mid battle. It's also much more quick and snappy. Saboteur and Synergist are not nearly as useful and the game is overall much much easier in comparison. I'd say overall it's an improvement but for people that value the challenge factor greatly, it won't be as good. The mechanics themselves are better imo but the game surrounding it doesn't take full advantage of them balance wise.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Yes, one of my major problems with the game.
Yeah I mean I think the AI is actually pretty decent most of the time.
Ravager AI checks whether enemys are clustered, and if so prioritizes AoE like Fira for example. It checks the weaknesses you've found and adapts accordingly, they do that pretty quickly, what takes time is actually finding the weakness because trial and error happens. Libra however cuts that down and gives you all the weakness instantly. It also decides whether to use normal magic or strike versions depending on whether your character has higher STR or MAGIC stat, and whether the enemy is weaker to physical or magical damage.
It's when more specific situations happen in the more complicated roles the AI struggles a bit. Some examples being medic, it priortizes Esuna over healing even if it's a ailment you don't care about removing yet because someone is dying soon or whatever. In Synergist/Sab it has an order it does the buffs/debuffs in and you might not always want all of them. Like a boss only using magic you don't want it doing protect or w/e.
Yep. Classes are re-tuned, there are less abilities (cleaner menus for SYN and SAB), and there's a customizable monster for your 3rd party member, but the core gameplay is the same.
Lightning Returns is completely different, however.
Are you sure about this one? Whenever I did occasionally Auto Battle(for science) it always chose half physical half magic attacks towards neutral phy/magic damage receivers making me assume that it did not in fact take into account stats.
thunder_snail
Member
I don't think auto-battle plays a large part in mash X for win complaints. I assume people complaining have never really gotten far into the game, otherwise they'd know they'd die in the first 20 seconds of battle even against normal enemies.
Or they are using easy mode with COM MED MED and getting 0 stars in battles, which means they're playing it wrong.
Honestly, I hold FFVII's battle system and FFXIII's battle system nearly in the same regard. I think people romanticize how on-the-fly FFVII's battle system was, especially when you're having to do Paradigm Shifts at the same pace in FFXIII.
I definitely do try to mix it up here and there. For instance, I might just wait an extra second or two and use Firaga to get a cluster of enemies. It's a cool dynamic and FFXIII's battle system is probably my favourite, but most FF battle systems have been excellent.
What I don't like is the crafting mechanic and the Crystarium. It's literally racking up stuff and injecting it to get upgrades. Boring.
I definitely do try to mix it up here and there. For instance, I might just wait an extra second or two and use Firaga to get a cluster of enemies. It's a cool dynamic and FFXIII's battle system is probably my favourite, but most FF battle systems have been excellent.
What I don't like is the crafting mechanic and the Crystarium. It's literally racking up stuff and injecting it to get upgrades. Boring.
I believe it will take into account stats. It will try to mix physical/magic if it doesn't know whether the enemy is strong/weak against physical or magic.
Try Auto-Battle against an enemy you've completely Libra'd.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the above is only true for COM. It's different logic for RAV. As a RAV, the AI/Auto-Battle tries to maximize how high it raises the Chain Gauge per attack. You get a small boost to Chain Gauge if the ability you're using is different than the last one you used, and you also get a bonus if you're using something the enemy is weak to, so against a Fire-weak enemy the AI will mix Fire and Flamestrike. Against a type-neutral enemy, it will use a variety of magic or -strikes depending on whether your MAG or STR is higher.
I should mention that this is one of the situations in which AI/Auto-Battle's simple objectives and rules fail. Against a Fire weak enemy, the optimal choice is to use either Fire or Flamestrike, because it's faster animation-wise to stick with either casting or attacking instead of swapping between them.
But, hey, at least it's predictable!
threelights
Member
Yooo, I'm on board the roller coaster finally.
After 14 mins of playing, the game seems pretty fun.
Does the in game tutorials explain the atb refresh, cancel, and stuff like that? When should I start learning that?
So far I know about abilities, auto battle, repeat, and items.
I f*cked up my controller and now I'm having weird inputs when outside of battle, I hope there's not many actions to perform here...
Also, do we only get to choose the leader after we get 3 members? Or can I control Sazh now?
After 14 mins of playing, the game seems pretty fun.
Does the in game tutorials explain the atb refresh, cancel, and stuff like that? When should I start learning that?
So far I know about abilities, auto battle, repeat, and items.
I f*cked up my controller and now I'm having weird inputs when outside of battle, I hope there's not many actions to perform here...
Also, do we only get to choose the leader after we get 3 members? Or can I control Sazh now?
I always thought it did. I remember Fang's always used strike attacks, unless there was multiple enemys about in which it'll mix in the AoE as well.
I just had a look at a previous save with Lightning(Couldn't test it in sunleath due to both being higher magic), and it did seem to prioritize strike attacks for her. The odd thing was, the flying bike thing, while it wanted to do 3 strikes, it did shove in a random fire attack. I dunno if that was because I don't have firestrike, or because it was a floating enemy. The other two enemys which were ground enemys(unlike the bike) it did only strike attacks. So maybe there's something more with this AI that we don't know.
Ah ah, that's interesting. Doesn't explain the random fire though. Since it could just alternate aquastrike and sparkstrike.
Well, she uses the gun in certain spots of a regular chain of attack... you just don't have the option to go BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.
The skytank is just a weird fight where they don't let the characters move to the enemy to hit it directly.
Sentinel spot and behaviour is a weird tradeoff. Putting it on party leader can make it work better in its own right, but if you can't survive the aggro 100% of the time, you can't beat the fight. Putting it on a secondary character gives less impressive sentineling, but you can pop a Raise when the character dies.
Letting Snow repeatedly yell at flying things to KO Feeding Stoop him is a perfectly legitimate way to keep your party leader alive.
Choosing your battle team structure is part of the "20 hours" thing.
I don't actually remember the game telling you about ATB refresh and cancelling. I just ended up figuring them out myself through playing.
ATB Refresh - If you fill the ATB up normally in a paradigm, and then swap to a new one, the ATB will be full from the start. Effectively allowing you to do 2 full ATB bars worth of abilities.
Cancelling - Press B mid sequence to stop where it's up to and take you back to the command input menu.
Doing a command before the entire bar is full - Press Y just before/just after you've chosen a target
You don't NEED to use them early on, but they definitely help.
Yeah, or as soon as the animation for your last attack has started.
Edit: Oh and another tip, you don't need to always keep a COM out to keep the stagger bar from dropping really quickly. You can swap to COM, get them to attack and then swap to all RAV to get the bar up quicker while still dropping slowly.You can just swap back to COM when you need to slow the decrease rate down again.
If you change before the actual attack has happened then the damage might change. It's best to do it immediately after the numbers show up.
Well if you do it when the animation starts by the time it actually swaps the hit'll have happened. I thought Death only worked because the animation was long. Could be wrong though.
If you are changing to a +dmg paradigm than the one you were using, it's best to change as fast as possible. If not, wait for the hit.
That could be related to what I said about COM; if Lightning didn't "know" whether the enemy was vulnerable or resistant to Physical/Magic, she might alternate to "play it safe".
There's actually an extremely good guide on GameFAQs that covers the AI and a million other topics in great detail. Some of the numbers are off as far as I can tell, but it's still my go-to resource for maximizing my play.
And with GeDoSaTo's settings finally in a good place, I'm off to start my No Crystarium run!
Eh, the only realy issue I ran into with the gambit system was the fact they tied certain gambits to progression. The only time I found myself messing with the gambits was whenever I ventured into a new area and I had to tweak for those monsters.Once I had it all figured out it really was cruise control, made even better with the speedup button that IZJS gave you.
The manual control was indeed clunky but it sufficed for when you actually did need to intervene.
threelights
Member
ok, I learned cancelling, and the Y thing as well.
I hope I get the ATB refresh soon as well.
Thanks for the help!
Yeah, that.
It sufficed but I wouldn't want to use it very often. It was more of a nightmare to navigate than XIII near the end of the game because you end up with so many abilities listed under the same categorys. Nor was it just the one character you had to do it for either.
As for gambits thats what I mean going into different areas, and then swapping again as you encounter new enemys, and at the boss. Then the issue you mentioned about having to buy or find different gambits which was a pain.
I dunno, it just didn't click with me, personal thing maybe.
Nah, I'd used a Libra before hand so it was all clear. Both enemys were normal to everything. So it didn't make much sense for the discrepancy between the AI actions for the two different enemys.
Does anybody know if this has any credence? Really want to play this and debating installing Windows on my Mac but won't bother if there's a possibility of it coming to Mac/Linux.