Can you turn off the stupid ATB system?

[weregamer]

ATB is the bane of tactical thinking while not really improving excitement level. Its appearance in the main FF series was the biggest factor, at least to me, in the end of the fun there.

From a coding point of view, implementing the thing must require a lot of work, but just freezing the enemies until you've picked your action ought to be so easy to make an option...

[Sifer2]

I was going to say you should have seen the option to turn it off when starting a new game but you don't own it. Also IMO CT is such an easy game by even JRPG standards the ATB makes it more fun.

[Dzaka]

you do realize you can set it to "wait" and soon as your menu for combat choices opens the monsters stop attacking

[weregamer]

Ah, thanks. That's exactly what I was asking. With that option, this becomes the near must-buy that it should be.

And no, I had no intention of buying a game that makes a big deal about having a "feature" that makes it a non-starter for me. That's why I was asking.

[Marcelo Sampaio]

Wait only makes enemies stop attacking when the magic or the item menu are open. It does NOT stop enemies when your turn comes.

If it's your turn, but you don't open any of the menus soon, enemies will attack you. "Wait" does not make the game a classic turn-based, it's still ATB.

[Dzaka]

Originally posted by Marcelo Sampaio:

Wait only makes enemies stop attacking when the magic or the item menu are open. It does NOT stop enemies when your turn comes.

If it's your turn, but you don't open any of the menus soon, enemies will attack you. "Wait" does not make the game a classic turn-based, it's still ATB.

its still not quite the atb.. and also anyone buying this and not griping about BS nostalgia goggles reasons is refreshing

[Prince Mercury]

Originally posted by weregamer:

Ah, thanks. That's exactly what I was asking. With that option, this becomes the near must-buy that it should be.

And no, I had no intention of buying a game that makes a big deal about having a "feature" that makes it a non-starter for me. That's why I was asking.

The combat could not be slowed down enough to make this port a must-buy.

Also if you think ATB takes the thought out of combat, this game is not for you. There are like two bosses where you can't just go all out on attack.

[Apoc]

You can slow down the combat a bit in the options, the default is quite fast compared to the SNES version. Wait Mode only works when in the Tech of Item menu. If you want to use only normal attacks you can use auto mode and switch it off when you want to use a tech or heal with items.

[mystiq]

Originally posted by weregamer:

ATB is the bane of tactical thinking while not really improving excitement level. Its appearance in the main FF series was the biggest factor, at least to me, in the end of the fun there.

From a coding point of view, implementing the thing must require a lot of work, but just freezing the enemies until you've picked your action ought to be so easy to make an option...

Can confirm: Coding ATB is a pain in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ass.

And no, it's not. Implementing turn-based combat is arguably more difficult than real-time because you need a state machine to control sequential actions and need to check so many conditions as the game runs. In real-time, things can happen independent of one another and animations can play out freely. In turn-based, you have to pause everyone's ATB bar, pause time-based debuffs like poison or regen, move unit to target, swing, move back, re-enable all ATB bars. Throw in displaying special effects and it gets just gross fast.

Source: Coded an RPG engine that uses ATB. Oh god, the bugs.

Maybe I should have just coded my combat system with a queue that fires off all the events in sequence.

[Sirbagsalot]

I usually do the opposite and make the combat super fast....to each his own I guess lol.