Turn Based vs ATB

[Nezkeys]

It's been a while since I played all the FF's (many of them being only once). I have fond memories of them all tbh but I don't remember each battle system specifically. I was kinda hoping someone could refresh my memory on what each games system was and we could discuss each ones pros and cons (that is if they aren't all the same thing essentially). Iirc they all have active and wait modes I just don't remember exactly how all are implemented. For example 10-2s wait mode is not perfectly implemented as it basically time stops on the decision of which enemy to attack...not what things you want to do on your turn.

10 to me sort of reminded me of chess and I loved it. It's slow … you get all the time in the world to make your move and can plan out whatever strategy you need to without the pressure of enemies attacking you at the same time (although after some considerable time playing the game you wont need that luxury for random encounters). I'm under no illusion this makes games easier and less "real" but its a videogame lol. 10 is my favourite of the old school games and sort of reminds me of DQ combat?

12 (gambits) was also near perfection to me

13 id say is atb from what i remember (i think the enemies keep attacking you if you stand there) but the abiilty to switch any combo of your characters and classes on the fly was very cool to me

15 was pure action of course but had a wait mode which basically paused the game fully iirc?

789 i think were all atb? don't remember much of 1-6 not sure how either implemented their wait/active mode if they even had one

[Casurin]

people - better not engage with this person - he won't accept any facts that go contrary to his own notions.

[Nezkeys]

Nobody here wants or needs your type of negativity, nor do they need your "advice" as I'm pretty sure they can all read and make their own mind up on this debate whether or not they want to engage with me.

Your troll response here has nothing to do with the topic debate at all. Your only motive is to derail a topic immediately for no other reason than to cause trouble out of nowhere because of your own irrelevant drama. Assess your own behaviour before you start preaching from the moral high ground. Borderline psychotic

Now then hopefully we can discuss the actual subject matter

[Serafie1999AD]

To be honest, I never liked the ATB system that much. First, it's not as fast as real-time action battles, and especially FFIX has the problem of actions being stuck on a turn queue for a long time, and when the actions are finally executed, the context of the battle has completely changed. FFX-2 did improve on the action queue problem a lot, though, and allowed chain attacks for an additional strategic element.

Second, the ATB system is not as strategic as a fully turn-based system, where the turn order is predetermined based on stats. If you don't input the commands instantly, you're wasting time, and the enemies' ATB will advance. Since no human is capable of inputting commands in 0.0 seconds due to reaction speed, you're always wasting at least a few hundred milliseconds of ATB on your turn. Setting the mode from Active to Wait only pauses the action if you access a submenu, but scrolling to a submenu and pressing the confirm button will also waste several hundred milliseconds of the ATB bar. The best way to avoid wasting ATB is by mashing the confirm button, which is totally not a good sign of strategic playing.

That said, I really preferred the turn-based and conditionally turn-based systems of, say, FF1-3, FFX, FF Tactics, Dissidia FF Opera Omnia, Lost Odyssey, Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, LotR: The Third Age and Super Mario RPG. The battle systems of those games, especially in the games where the turn order is visible, allow you to plan a long sequence of actions in advance.

As for other FFs, I liked how World of FF on Wait mode pauses the action whenever you get a turn, so there's no wasted ATB time. I also enjoyed FFXII's battle system a lot, with how you can use Gambits as a way of programming to automate trivial tasks, and how the Wait mode pauses the action whenever you access a menu. FFXII also got rid of the feature that I've always hated the most in the FF series, that is, random battles. FFXIII tries to prevent the waste of ATB by letting you queue commands while the ATB bar is charging. However, inputting a chain of different commands from the menus is tedious and usually not worth it, so you're often better off using the auto-battle option. I'd have preferred a choice to map each paradigm's actions on a hotkey, similar to Lightning Returns. I think LR had a really fun battle system, although it doesn't feel like an FF game without party members.

[Nezkeys]

100% agree that atb encourages button mashing. Most of those games you mentioned are also some of my all time faves. do all of the atb games implement wait mode in exactly the same manner except for 10-2 then?

[Nibbie]

Origineel geplaatst door Nezkeys:

100% agree that atb encourages button mashing. Most of those games you mentioned are also some of my all time faves. do all of the atb games implement wait mode in exactly the same manner except for 10-2 then?

From what I remember wait mode usually only applies to certain menu actions, like selecting a spell, though the exact list of actions changes from game to game (I think some games consider choosing the target of an attack as wait time, others don't, for example). I think at least one of them also had a sort of hybrid, where a character's ATB filling would activate wait, but only for a second, so you had time to get into a menu before real time continued. It's been a while since I played a lot of the games, so I don't remember specifics, just that the exacts of the system changed almost every game.

[Nezkeys]

Origineel geplaatst door Nibbie:

Origineel geplaatst door Nezkeys:

100% agree that atb encourages button mashing. Most of those games you mentioned are also some of my all time faves. do all of the atb games implement wait mode in exactly the same manner except for 10-2 then?

From what I remember wait mode usually only applies to certain menu actions, like selecting a spell, though the exact list of actions changes from game to game (I think some games consider choosing the target of an attack as wait time, others don't, for example). I think at least one of them also had a sort of hybrid, where a character's ATB filling would activate wait, but only for a second, so you had time to get into a menu before real time continued. It's been a while since I played a lot of the games, so I don't remember specifics, just that the exacts of the system changed almost every game.

i must have imagined that wait worked as soon as you atb was full. I do remember never even thinking of this as a negative so to speak (for me) until now. Maybe I just got used to turn based so much / haven't played atb for too long. I was subbed to 11 for years and that's all i played and i love that game so much. not even sure how i would define 11s combat but 12 did appear to borrow elements from it.

anyway i did buy 456789 recently but haven't gotten around to replaying any. 10 for me is one of the greatest rpgs rever made let alone an ff. its funny cause i prefer the later ones now i think. the combat in 12 and all three 13 games is great. 15 is ok i guess but there are probably better action rpgs imo