FFVIIR: I feel like the combat and enemy design are mismatched [SPOILERS]

[jdmc13]

Note: I've just recently made it to the Wall Market so I have yet to complete the game.

I've been binging FFVIIR this week. I've enjoying it a lot thus far: the writing, the cast, the music, etc. My two biggest highlights are the combat and the enemy design. I love playing as all the characters: each character having a different kit and being able to switch on the fly opens up so many possibilities. The enemies all look awesome and have great animations. However, every time combat begins, I have this general feeling of unease that I've been unable to really grasp. Finally, when watching the PatStaresAt stream today, it clicked when he said "This is like a Devil May Cry boss." The combat and enemy design are great in isolation, but they just don't match well.

I love the ATB system especially since it requires you to be thoughtful about your actions and use of items since you are actively expending your available actions to commit to them. The stagger system on enemies is great, because it forces you to not just spam the attack button as enemies will not have take meaningful damage or have real hit stun until they are staggered. However, the problem is how these two systems interplay. I've found myself in situations where I've just spent my ATB actions, and then, I've been wombo-combo'd by an enemy. I've found my best recourse is to just... restart the fight.

Without hit stun, trying to attack the enemies to gain an ATB gauge is a mixed bag. Playing evasively isn't really a winning strategy as dodging provides no invulnerability frames and enemy have really strong tracking. Blocking reduces damage, but without a steadfast block materia, the damage reduction might not be enough. It just feels like I can end up in a corner from which the best solution is to simply restart which seems like bad design.

I feel like the combat system was designed for slower combat with more purposeful decisions were enemies have better tells and longer wind-ups. The enemies feel like they were designed for a more action oriented game where dodging and/or blocking is more effective.

Also, I could just be playing the game wrong and/or just bad at it. I was just wondering if anyone else was having the same reaction as me.

 

[Nappuccino]

I've been experiencing a bit of trouble with the enemy's tells. I just have such a hard time knowing when they're going to attack. I'm on Chapter 5, I think, and I've only just now started to feel mildly comfortable with the mechanics.

However, I still really hate how long some of the fights can go when you might have the wrong Materia equipped and all you want to do is respec your equipped materia.

 

[cubistic]

The source of this issue is not being able to change materia during battle. Targeting enemy weaknesses is the key to success, but you can't do it in battle. I restart once I access a new enemy just to change materia. Awful.

 

[Cheezeman3000]

I'd agree that changing materia mid battle would really enhance the experience without any downsides that I can see

 

[jdmc13]

The source of this issue is not being able to change materia during battle. Targeting enemy weaknesses is the key to success, but you can't do it in battle. I restart once I access a new enemy just to change materia. Awful.

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Yeah, I did this for a few bosses.

 

[AgeEighty]

Yeah, I struggled at times with inconsistent tells. The telegraphs are all over the map, some being incredibly short and subtle but still knocking off half your character's health and blasting them into a wall.

It gets a lot better late in the game when you have a lot more tools at your disposal for quickly building ATB and counterattacking, but early on it can be tricky.

 

[Famassu]

I'd agree that changing materia mid battle would really enhance the experience without any downsides that I can see

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It would make the game insanely easy.

 

[Cheezeman3000]

It would make the game insanely easy.

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Disagree, it would just make for less unnecessary restarts once you scan a boss and find out they aren't weak to any of your elements or that they randomly have an important item to steal.

 

[ciddative]

The game's combat is enjoyable, but having completed it, I'm just not convinced the menu/action hybrid system works. I don't feel i can reliably predict a lot of attacks to mitigate/avoid them. This coupled with an often unhelpful camera, and collision effectively trapping me in corners or small spaces, and it causes frustration.

Overall the combat always felt too scrappy and imprecise, but there was satisfaction and fun to be had.

Fuck the sewers and them 2 dogs tho

 

[Keldroc]

It would make the game insanely easy.

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If the only thing making the game challenging is blindsiding the player with elemental weaknesses they have no way of being prepared for other than reloading a save, the game is pretty shitty. The combat system is undermined by the refusal to break further from the trappings of the original's materia system, plus Square's long-exhausted obsession with elemental weaknesses opening up an enemy for actual HP damage. The Hell House fight is absolute garbage. It's not helped by the fact that grafting all that onto the KH3 combat system is shaky at best. It's workable but I'm continually floored by the people falling all over themselves to defend this clunky nonsense. I realize we waited a long time for this but I didn't realize standards had dropped so low in the name of just being happy to have it in hand.

 

[AJ_Cyberpunk]

In regards materia, as game goes on and upgrade your weapons, find better armour / Accs with more materia slots, you should have most Element materia covered for weakness. Especially if you have 3 in the team at the current time. Obviously if you struggling on a boss fight then readjusting your matera after a failed attempt is just part of the game. I quite like making tough choices on what materia to bring and what to leave.

The only real issue i had was near end where it constantly split the party up.

Really wish i could copy all materiaset up from one party member to another with one button press. (If there was a option i missed it)

I got plat trophy and found combat grew on me as game went on and enjoyed the combat in hard mode even more.

 

[Serenity Lotus]

Oh come on. It is just like the OG in the sense when you go in blind with a boss fight! Gives that OG feel! /s

I have no issues with the current system.

 

[Rats]

I think the combat system is great but it took me a long time to get completely comfortable with it. I'm doing a second fresh playthrough (on normal, not hard) and stuff I found overwhelming on my initial run is now almost laughably easy. Choices they made that seemed perplexing at first make complete sense when I know how all the pieces fit together.

 

[Laser Ramon]

How many times are these people gonna get into an encounter to find out they don't have the enemy's weakness equipped before they learn to have them all equipped

 

[Famassu]

Disagree, it would just make for less unnecessary restarts once you scan a boss and find out they aren't weak to any of your elements or that they randomly have an important item to steal.

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That shouldn't be an issue outside of maybe early game when you have limited materia slots & only play as one or two characters (though early game nothing should be hugely dragged out by not having the right materia), and even then if you pay even a little bit of attention, the game does give you enough hints to adjust materia for any particular section (like a side quest where people talk about a flying monster -> flying monsters are usually weak to aero, or seeing the airbuster being moved around -> robots are weak to lightning so you know you should be preparing for that).

Past the first few chapters, you shouldn't be having materia loadouts that are missing elements.

 

[Deleted member 36578]

Come prepared. I know materia slots are limited but that's on the player to balance everything. Otherwise it'd just be too easy if you had access to everything at all times. There's a strategy to equipping your gear and you need to think about it.

 

[Serenity Lotus]

How many times are these people gonna get into an encounter to find out they don't have the enemy's weakness equipped before they learn to have them all equipped

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Good question.

 

[Rats]

How many times are these people gonna get into an encounter to find out they don't have the enemy's weakness equipped before they learn to have them all equipped

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lol, this. By Chapter 4 I learned to have all four elements equipped at all times.

The only mildly annoying thing is having to repeatedly swap Elemental-linked materia if you want to play as optimally as possible, but that's not remotely necessary.

 

[headfallsoff]

You are correct that the VIIr combat with the stagger system and enemy weaknesses is designed for a slower-paced game with more time to make decisions; it is designed for Final Fantasy XIII lmao. So yeah I think your reaction is totally warranted. VIIr's system is a kind of hacked together disaster but I mean that in the most loving way. It's not super balanced and it's definitely an awkward mix of real time design and turn based design. But when it does come together it feels absolutely incredible.

 

[spman2099]

I feel like the combat system was designed for slower combat with more purposeful decisions were enemies have better tells and longer wind-ups. The enemies feel like they were designed for a more action oriented game where dodging and/or blocking is more effective.

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This isn't a consistent problem in the game, but there are definitely quite a few instances of it. Some of the enemies do have pretty poor tells. Some of those attacks are also blindingly quick, and it can be pretty hard to know if you are supposed to counter, block, or dodge (they probably should work on making that a little more clear in the sequel). Basically, the encounter design isn't perfect. However, to reiterate, I do think that this is an inconsistent issue. I would say the majority of the encounters work pretty well.

Generally speaking, this is a wonderful combat engine. I hope they work a little on the encounter design, and emphasize the readability of the enemies, in the sequel. However, even without those changes, this is the most compelling blend of turn-based and action we have ever seen.

 

[VariantX]

If the only thing making the game challenging is blindsiding the player with elemental weaknesses they have no way of being prepared for other than reloading a save, the game is pretty shitty. The combat system is undermined by the refusal to break further from the trappings of the original's materia system, plus Square's long-exhausted obsession with elemental weaknesses opening up an enemy for actual HP damage. The Hell House fight is absolute garbage. It's not helped by the fact that grafting all that onto the KH3 combat system is shaky at best. It's workable but I'm continually floored by the people falling all over themselves to defend this clunky nonsense. I realize we waited a long time for this but I didn't realize standards had dropped so low in the name of just being happy to have it in hand.

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Its essentially action oriented FF13 combat. What that game lets you do is switch paradigms and adjust to your enemy as you learn more about them in mid battle. You can't really do that here and as far as I know, there's no way to scout ahead to know what you're up against. I've just been making sure at least one person has lightning materia since every major boss battle or tough enemy has been mechanical in nature so far. That can only go so far though.

 

[jdmc13]

This isn't a consistent problem in the game, but there are definitely quite a few instances of it. Some of the enemies do have pretty poor tells. Some of those attacks are also blindingly quick, and it can be pretty hard to know if you are supposed to counter, block, or dodge (they probably should work on making that a little more clear in the sequel). Basically, the encounter design isn't perfect. However, to reiterate, I do think that this is an inconsistent issue. I would say the majority of the encounters work pretty well.

Generally speaking, this is a wonderful combat engine. I hope they work a little on the encounter design, and emphasize the readability of the enemies, in the sequel. However, even without those changes, this is the most compelling blend of turn-based and action we have ever seen.

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I feel like Reno and Rude were the closest as there seemed to be some different colors based upon the expected defensive action. More of that would be greatly welcomed in the sequel.

 

[Cheezeman3000]

There are plenty of RPGs that allow weapon and armor switching mid battle and none of those games were negatively impacted by it.

 

[Serenity Lotus]

There are plenty of RPGs that allow weapon and armor switching mid battle and none of those games were negatively impacted by it.

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In the JRPG space? Genuinely curious because I don't know of any.

 

[Brodo Baggins]

In the JRPG space? Genuinely curious because I don't know of any.

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I've played a few JRPGs that allowed swapping out weapons in battle, but it generally eats a turn as a cost.

Personally I don't think this game really needed it though. The cases where fights kicked my ass due to bad elemental loadout were pretty exclusively boss fights where it makes sense that they are a challenge. There were a few zones that had tons of enemies that were weak to a certain set of elements, and that just hinted to me I should take a break between encounters and slot in the right elements if they were missing. I personally like the constraints on what you can bring with you as it actually requires thought and preparation.

The original FF7 didn't allow you to swap out materia mid-battle so why should it here?

 

[Saiyaman]

How many times are these people gonna get into an encounter to find out they don't have the enemy's weakness equipped before they learn to have them all equipped

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In hard mode you'd be better off using purple materia and only having the element needed for a specific boss fight, imo.

In the JRPG space? Genuinely curious because I don't know of any.

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You can swap weapons/shields in combat in Dragon Quest.

 

[astro]

I disagree, once I figured out how to best approach the combat and various encounters it clicked to the point it's incredibly fluid. Hard mode is some of the best combat this gen.

If you approach like a traditional action game, it will fell clunky and unsatisfying.

 

[big bas]

Seconding that the combat became much much more comfortable to me once I started thinking about it as a reimagining of the old turn-based combat; coming to terms with the fact that you will take damage, mitigating it while filling ATB, etc

 

[MetalKhaos]

Disagree, it would just make for less unnecessary restarts once you scan a boss and find out they aren't weak to any of your elements or that they randomly have an important item to steal.

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Keep more elements on you. I always try to have one of the main ones, or worst case, a summon with an element I don't have on me. Even then, it's not all super important unless you're coming up to a boss, in which case there's always the rest/benches after mobs that signal it's coming up.

I've had plenty of close call fights where I had to use a few phoenix downs to keep my party going, but the only fight I wiped out on was either Colosseum optional stuff or the bike scene towards the end, because I was an idiot not reading the bike commands and braking.

 

[Sterling's Gold]

I loved the combat and I feel like most of the complaints are because people try to play like a character action game. The only attacks that you should dodge do have very obvious long wind-ups and otherwise blocking is very effective. If you are taking too much damage, you are not taking advantage of all of the tools at your disposal: Magnify + Barrier, Lifesaver/Steelskin, etc.

I do generally agree that the game could explain the mechanics better, but the combat system is not "bad design". I had pretty much zero trouble beating the game on hard + the superbosses and I'm hardly an expert.

 

[Serenity Lotus]

You can swap weapons/shields in combat in Dragon Quest.

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Ok, but doesn't that use up your turn in the process?

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

It would make the game insanely easy.

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It also trivilizes character builds and preperation. You want to make sure between your entire party you have a balanced set up for all possible scenarios.

 

[astro]

I loved the combat and I feel like most of the complaints are because people try to play like a character action game. The only attacks that you should dodge do have very obvious long wind-ups and otherwise blocking is very effective. If you are taking too much damage, you are not taking advantage of all of the tools at your disposal: Magnify + Barrier, Lifesaver/Steelskin, etc.

I do generally agree that the game could explain the mechanics better, but the combat system is not "bad design". I had pretty much zero trouble beating the game on hard + the superbosses and I'm hardly an expert.

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All of this.

 

[Minthara]

The "catch" with Remake's combat is that the game is designed to pretty much always attack and focus on whoever you are in control of. Once you embrace that and master it, you can do all sorts of crazy things that break the whole thing open in interesting ways.

I.e. you can switch to Tifa and Aerith to fill their ATB faster in down moments to get them to two bars then stagger the enemy with Cloud using punisher mode counters and his ATB.

When the enemy staggers, blow them up to 300% stagger with the full Rise and Fall combo and Aerith hype beam. This dovetails into Cloudst around the world slash that does a billion damage for 2 ATB.

The combat really flows together once you master enemy control to the fullest, IMO

TLDR: Unless you are planning a counterattack or parry, you should be switching characters every 3 -5 seconds.

 

[Deleted member 54073]

To the people who have to assess, quit the battle and go back in again.. you should probably always have the element materials equipped. A couple of lightnings for all the machines, fires for the humans and an ice :)

 

[captmcblack]

Seconding that the combat became much much more comfortable to me once I started thinking about it as a reimagining of the old turn-based combat; coming to terms with the fact that you will take damage, mitigating it while filling ATB, etc

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This is me.

It's tempting to approach it like an action game and hope that you won't take a lot of damage - but it's better to think of it as high-speed damage mitigation. The goal is to optimize what you can survive or deal out for your party with each set of ATB charges.

 

[Famassu]

If the only thing making the game challenging is blindsiding the player with elemental weaknesses they have no way of being prepared for other than reloading a save, the game is pretty shitty. The combat system is undermined by the refusal to break further from the trappings of the original's materia system, plus Square's long-exhausted obsession with elemental weaknesses opening up an enemy for actual HP damage. The Hell House fight is absolute garbage. It's not helped by the fact that grafting all that onto the KH3 combat system is shaky at best. It's workable but I'm continually floored by the people falling all over themselves to defend this clunky nonsense. I realize we waited a long time for this but I didn't realize standards had dropped so low in the name of just being happy to have it in hand.

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You either aren't paying attention or just suck at playing the game if you are "blindsighted" by anything.

And this game has nothing to do with KH3 combat system. Entirely different combat systems outside of both being action RPGs a with a few shortcut commands.

 

[DeadPhoenix]

In the JRPG space? Genuinely curious because I don't know of any.

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Final fantasy.... i wanna say 4 5 and 6(4 i am the least sure of) all let you change weapons mid battle(less sure about armor off hand... yeah probably just weapon and shield/off hand weapon). I dont think you lose a turn in them but its not a tactic i used pretty much at all. For the most part it doesn't matter(other then breaking rods in ff5 maybe?), but if you are using an elemental weapon an enemy absorbs or something, it can help a lot.

 

[Deleted member 64609]

There are a lot of issues with enemy hitstun vs. player hitstun, melee being nearly useless against a number of mobs, stagger conditions, and dodge invincibility.

I never had materia problems though lol

 

[Atlantis]

In the JRPG space? Genuinely curious because I don't know of any.

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FFX and FFXII both allow this.

 

[Saiyaman]

Ok, but doesn't that use up your turn in the process?

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Nope! You can change weapons and then select an ability in the same turn.

 

[Deleted member 12833]

reads more like user error than design issues.

 

[Deleted member 54073]

If the only thing making the game challenging is blindsiding the player with elemental weaknesses they have no way of being prepared for other than reloading a save, the game is pretty shitty. The combat system is undermined by the refusal to break further from the trappings of the original's materia system, plus Square's long-exhausted obsession with elemental weaknesses opening up an enemy for actual HP damage. The Hell House fight is absolute garbage. It's not helped by the fact that grafting all that onto the KH3 combat system is shaky at best. It's workable but I'm continually floored by the people falling all over themselves to defend this clunky nonsense. I realize we waited a long time for this but I didn't realize standards had dropped so low in the name of just being happy to have it in hand.

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How can you be blindsided by an enemy with elemental weakness? Why dont you have those equipped? Are you just ramming in alot of HP and MP ups?

Seems like a user error to me, not a fault of the system.

 

[Famassu]

In hard mode you'd be better off using purple materia and only having the element needed for a specific boss fight, imo.



You can swap weapons/shields in combat in Dragon Quest.

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In hard mode you put the best magic weapon + a couple of fully leveled MP and magic ups and elemental magic materias of each type (or at least ice, fire and lightning, aero is perhaps the least needed) on a single character and go ballistic with him/her to break the enemy with whatever they are weak against (if weak against anything), then use Tifa/Aerith to up the stagger damage boost as much as possible and let Cloud do the rest with his strongest physical damage weapon (Hard Edge, IIRC) & attack (limit break in bosses if charged). Not everyone needs to have offensive magic if you play wisely.

 

[MilkBeard]

reads more like user error than design issues.

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While there are some things in the system that could be tweaked, most of the complaints here do seem to be users not quite understanding the battle system enough or not using it to its strengths rather than actual design flaws.

How can you be blindsided by an enemy with elemental weakness? Why dont you have those equipped? Are you just ramming in alot of HP and MP ups?

Seems like a user error to me, not a fault of the system.

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Yeah this complaint doesn't really hold water. You can literally just make sure you have each member have a few different elemental materias and you have all your bases covered.

 

[Bit_Reactor]

The issue with not having a set nameplate location like an MMO or Xenoblade means that you can miss the tiny nameplates if you have a smaller tv or there's a lot of enemies on screen, when it could have the small ones along with ones that are for your locked on target up top.

The other issue is some attacks looking like they can be blocked/parried/punished but can't. Why does Frosty Claw not get punished? Because it has ice damage. But then like a fire sword attack later can be punished. If there was a distinguishing mark of the nameplates and more conveyence of tells/mechanics it would become less "Experiment and see what works and then restart" for some players.

Then there's things like Chapter 17 where enemies are mobbing you, also disappearing and reappearing, breaking lock on, you only have two party members, and the camera is in a tight corridor as well which works against a lot of the encounter designs later on.

What's extra silly is that you have some extremely elaborate fights like Hell House that need juggling of materias and elements with a ton of tactical data, and then a ton of other bosses that are just "no tactical data available" which to me defeats the purpose of the Assess materia.

 

[Cerulean_skylark]

Being able to change materia mid-battle removes any of the strategy involved in hard mode. hands down.

 

[j3d1j4m13]

Get in the habit of switching characters. Basically do a combo or ability, switch.

Dont dodge unless it's a move you cant block. If you are blocking a combo switch characters, the ai will continue blocking and you'll be doing more damage controlling a different character and building ATB.

All characters should have at least fire ice lightning and heal. At least one of them needs wind. Experiment with your other slots.

Dont spend ATB until you get two if you can. That way you can heal if needed or stack damage during a stagger.

I do wish there was a way to tell if an attack is unlockable besides getting knocked on your ass and learning from it.

 

[DeadPhoenix]

How can you be blindsided by an enemy with elemental weakness? Why dont you have those equipped? Are you just ramming in alot of HP and MP ups?

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Unless you are rocking every elemental spell on every character then can easily become an issue when you are doing late shinra tower as the game has your party change multiple times. I still need to go back and assess a boss that was in the middle of multiple cut-scenes because i didn't have cloud for that fight. Might have been able to open the menu during the cutscene, but if so i missed it because i'm not looking at the bottom left of the screen most of the time.

 

[Bit_Reactor]

Being able to change materia mid-battle removes any of the strategy involved in hard mode. hands down.

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How?

Going into a fight with the wrong materia because you're not psychic and don't know what's coming is actively punishing the player for not "assuming" they'll fight something weak to fire in the next encounter.

I don't think it's strategy to go "Woops you brought the wrong materia to the fight better just grit your teeth and use other methods" when players could better equip themselves. Especially when some fights specify certain elemental weaknesses to be able to stagger more effectively, or some enemies that can negate physical or magical damage completely.