Shiva fight and some thoughts about the fighting system

[Mindtroverted]

Was about to go to the forums to complain about the unbelievable difficulty spike when I had to fight Shiva only to realise I wasn't supposed to attempt it while having only Cloud in my party. Took a couple of tries, but ended up being pretty fun.

However, it also made it clear to me what I dislike about the fighting system. My most enjoyable fights were those where I only had Cloud or those that only had 1 enemy. The fact that you can't generally determine the behavior of your non-active teammates is annoying. They should at least focus the target I select or something. And when there's a lot of enemies in a fight, I keep seeing my teammates running around in opposite directions and half of the enemies at half HP.

Another thing I've noticed especially in the Shiva fight is that I don't see the point of using Dodge 90% of the time besides as a tool to quickly switch from Cloud's Operator mode back. Blocking is more reliable and with Steadfast Block materia it gets even better.

Some things to improve in the sequel, I guess.

[Sm0k3f47h3r]

yes, 100%. i should be able to choose if my team mates attack the same enemy that i lock on and how they behave when i don't feel like commanding them.

defeating shiva with only cloud was epic =)

[Broso]

There definitely should be a better way to control the AI of not currently controlled characters. The dodge roll also should be improved. Does that thing even have i-frames?

[Codester]

Publicado originalmente por Broso:

There definitely should be a better way to control the AI of not currently controlled characters. The dodge roll also should be improved. Does that thing even have i-frames?

No it doesn't.
You have to figure out which attacks can be dodged and which you need to guard.

[Jaiythe]

Its not even hard, just spam fire. and yes i did it solo.

[Pyro3000]

Publicado originalmente por Mindtroverted:

Was about to go to the forums to complain about the unbelievable difficulty spike when I had to fight Shiva only to realise I wasn't supposed to attempt it while having only Cloud in my party. Took a couple of tries, but ended up being pretty fun.

However, it also made it clear to me what I dislike about the fighting system. My most enjoyable fights were those where I only had Cloud or those that only had 1 enemy. The fact that you can't generally determine the behavior of your non-active teammates is annoying. They should at least focus the target I select or something. And when there's a lot of enemies in a fight, I keep seeing my teammates running around in opposite directions and half of the enemies at half HP.

Another thing I've noticed especially in the Shiva fight is that I don't see the point of using Dodge 90% of the time besides as a tool to quickly switch from Cloud's Operator mode back. Blocking is more reliable and with Steadfast Block materia it gets even better.

Some things to improve in the sequel, I guess.

I do wish there was a "target" command, but the nice thing is if you have them use an ability on a target, they'll stick to that target until it dies.

[Pyro3000]

Publicado originalmente por Broso:

There definitely should be a better way to control the AI of not currently controlled characters. The dodge roll also should be improved. Does that thing even have i-frames?

I don't think so. I've definitely been hit during every frame of the roll. I guess I don't mind, though. the concept of i-frames has always been strange to me.

[Xengre]

Blocking is, indeed, more practical in general. Dodging is useful in some cases but you really need parry dodge to make it especially powerful (notably on Tifa who it is clearly overpowered on, I suspect nerfs to it in episode 2 for her as its pretty severe).

The core issue was likely because the game is, ultimately, a tactical RPG and not truly a souls-like/action game. In cases you can dodge you can completely negate damage but it shouldn't be a total determining factor where you can laughably dance about the battlefield completely stomping enemies and bosses.

That said, you would be surprised about how much you can reliably learn to dodge in the game. Shiva can be readily dodged as well and sometimes running is better than the dodge action. However, some of Shiva's attacks are generally going to be easier to simply block while others are better to dodge so she has a nice mix.

As for Shiva you have beaten her but for heads up when you fight her in the post game 5-part simulator fight make sure to use fire like Jaiythe mentioned. If you use fire she will be weak to it and thus can be staggered far more easily plus take massive damage. You can boost this by using Aerith's double cast ward + fire spam, and if you want set cloud as a caster as well and double cast spam along with aerith (cloud can have nearly as good caster stats as her). Magic is the OP in the game so keep it in mind and thus because Aerith has double cast ward and highest magic attack stat she is effectively the best character in the game and to have, with Cloud being a close second, and then Tifa's various utility and dodge tricks (barrett is still really good if struggling to survive mind you and Tifa isn't really that good until late game due to skills/materia acquisition). Aside from magic simply out damaging everything, limit breaks included, pay attention to blizzard magic. This may be harder to hit but has far higher stagger capability (obv not useful for shiva but great vs stuff not resistant to ice, and esp those weak to it). Note: -zara has more stagger than blizzard but -zara stagger is identical to -zaga stagger while being way more MP efficient.

Publicado originalmente por Pyro3000:

Publicado originalmente por Broso:

There definitely should be a better way to control the AI of not currently controlled characters. The dodge roll also should be improved. Does that thing even have i-frames?

I don't think so. I've definitely been hit during every frame of the roll. I guess I don't mind, though. the concept of i-frames has always been strange to me.

You're correct. No iframes. It will become very apparent on a dodge heavy super boss (hardest fight in game) in the post game simulator (requires to beat game > then dlc > then go back to simulator). That fight the boss is super aggressive and dashes (practically teleports) a ton. No iframes, but he does have specific dodge patterns to counter such as dodge into his thrust to jump over him, dodge sideways on another specific attack, and back on the other iirc and they miss (this is intentional with regards to directions and developer design).

[Amins]

I really don't see the issue. Enemies will almost always focus on the character that you're controlling unless they're already in the process of attacking before you switch to someone else. So they shouldn't be doing major damage to anyone you aren't in control of. Most of the time, my teammates will kill enemies way too quickly before I even have the chance to get a stagger or a weakness in on an enemy for the challenges.

And Shiva is super easy to solo with Cloud. Keep her stun locked with fire and keep pushing the stagger meter up.

[Forte224]

The point of the battle system is to quickly switch between all three characters. The fact that they don't do much is so you can directly choose what they all do. It's just like OG where you would press triangle to swap between characters whose ATB is filled.

Also, the dodge doesn't need to be improved. It's intentionally the way it is. You're supposed to rely on blocking. This isn't a twitch based action game, it's a hybrid battle system that takes ideas from the old ATB turn based combat and incorporates it into a real-time action combat system. Blocking is more reliable than outright dodging an attack...just like OG.

[Muscarine]

The Shiva fight conveniently pops when you just earned Elemental materia, which you can use to either resist Ice or infuse Fire to your attacks

Jessie also conveniently gave you Ifrit as a freebie

And Cloud has stupid good stats everywhere so you essentially get to chose which one you want to make grossly overpowered to make any fight a cake walk

Publicado originalmente por Forte224:

The point of the battle system is to quickly switch between all three characters.

There's absolutely no need to do that when you can just control Tifa the ATB dispenser instead

And she's actually fun to control too

[RHOMBVS]

I hated the combat system at first, but then I got used to it. Can't say I like it, but it's what it is.
But what I still hate is how some fights are so dependant on the stagger using a specific spell.
The Hell House fight took me almost half an hour to beat because I didn't have the right counter spells, so I was chipping its health by singles.

[RHOMBVS]

Publicado originalmente por Muscarine:

The Shiva fight conveniently pops when you just earned Elemental materia, which you can use to either resist Ice or infuse Fire to your attacks

Jessie also conveniently gave you Ifrit as a freebie

And Cloud has stupid good stats everywhere so you essentially get to chose which one you want to make grossly overpowered to make any fight a cake walk

Basically all I did was spam the puncturing strike or whatever it is the ability you have off the Buster Sword which stacks stagger like crazy and procs the summon, then you summon Ifrit and watch her melt.

[HP Laserjet 9000]

I remember in Baldur's Gate (the old, old ones) you could set a bunch of different conditions for your party members to make them take certain actions. I believe Dragon Age did this too. It would be nice to have.

[Valentino]

So I fought Shiva when she was unlocked just now, Cloud was 19, and I just slotted elemental + ice in his armor slot. Half damage from all her attacks and cura makes this fight just a patience game. Save the mp for curas, it will come back in time, you should run out or need ethers(I mean you could just spam ethers and fira if you want)

I stayed in the first form(the quick one) while building her stagger gauge slowly, and when staggered I'd just use omnislash or braver as much as I could. And I didn't use ifrit instead I used chocobo chick but ifrit would probably be better.

Most of her abilities can be dodged, and should be so not sure what the suggestion there is. Just lock on and circle her and glacier(?, the one that sleeps you) and blizzard will miss you as long as you don't stand still. Just keep circling right and attack when you have openings. Then the point blank area of affect she does that blasts out is highly telegraphed, just walk backwards out of range. The only two that can't are the tiny ice spikes that kind of hit you for 11 damage while blocking with half damage ice on, and her limit break(which with half damage ice on doesn't do anything you can't mitigate easily).

I think people here are really overestimating how much extra damage 8% is vs 50% less ice health lost during a fight. And probably don't realize the UI shows you when an upcoming attack is undodgeable(it's red).

[Sifer2]

Right before that Shiva boss becomes available there is a support materia called Synergy that makes partner character cast whatever spell you cast for free. That plus Aeriths Arcane Ward which let's you cast twice, and you get three casts of Fire for every cast. Makes her pretty simple. You can even summon Ifrit. I will say though boss fights start getting a lot more annoying from around that point on. Where if you don't play to their exact weakness it becomes a massive grind to beat them if at all.