Does combat improve later in the game?

[Kreddi]

Played some of the demo and found it disappointingly dull.
Holding one button to dodge and one button to attack became generic before I even finished the tutorial.
Does anything change later in the game?

[Hyrael]

You get new weapons (although half of them share the same graphics), you can make some better "magic", but thats about it. The combat will never get more complex in terms of what buttons your pressing, just in terms of timing and what weapon to use.

You can switch to party members eventually (by spending a good bit of AP to unlock the ability to control them) but I havent tested whether they play the same as they did in their own DLC episodes, if they do then the combat style is definitely a bit different for them.

[RUN PROGRAM > SENTIONAUTS]

Ain't there some skills? Abilities you can use? Magic?

You make it sound like there is purely just basic attack?

Game does not need to be turn-based for it to have more then just "attack" no? :D

[CatPerson]

Character swap, each of the three bro's have their own style, just like in their DLC, yes. So that does add an element of change/difference in combat if you care for it.

With Noct, while you *can* play the hold-button method, no denying that, moving the stick in different directions causes other movesets (different for different weapons) to occur and you can do this on purpose vs. just accidentally while running around in combat.

And there are skills not available in the demo that change things a bit, like Airstepping.

I would never call XV's combat "deep" or complex or even full of true choices, but a lot of what you get out of is what you put in - you can just hold buttons while you watch TV, or be a little more proactive and change things up even if it's "not needed to win."

[Fhaerron]

It gets better when you've unlocked more skills with your AP in the talent grid like air stepping being one of them.

You can chain combos, I once fought +30 seconds in air by 'air stepping', warping and chaining up attacks on those birds.

Your movement & direction also matters a lot and the way you move your sticks. Warp in, link strike, dodge roll, stab in the side, dodge rol again and blind strike, etc.
It's also a good idea to change your weapon frequently, even more so if the enemies have multiple weapon weaknesses.

Don't forget the skills of your bro's. Warp in with great sword on the weak side of the enemy use gladio's skill and don't forget to press B at the end (meanwhile you swap to your spear) and you do a linkstrike with gladio where he tosses you in the air and you come crashing down with your spear (dragoon style).

It's even more fun when you unlock the royal weapons (I quite liked the katakana & shuriken), they all behave differently and chains well.

Oh and Armiger, that's seriously OP in a lot of fights.


Source: Played the PS4 version to death since launch.

[CatPerson]

Originally posted by Fhaerron:

Your movement & direction also matters a lot and the way you move your sticks. Warp in, link strike, dodge roll, stab in the side, dodge rol again and blind strike, etc..

The tutorial is really terrible at telling people what all the actual tricks and moves are. And other things. I didn't realize daggers wouldn't proc link strikes for some time, and kept wondering what these "link strikes" everyone was talking about were and why I never saw them. lol. Also that the different link strikes depend on what weapon Noct. is using + whether or not a bro has one gear slot filled or both. Many may only see a few link strikes because of this, which is a shame.

I've played PS4 to death as well, over 1000 hours - I wouldn't say I'm an expert, sometimes I'm lazy and just do the button mashing - but there's definitely a lot of things you can do to change up and make combat a lot more interesting. Just takes a while to figure it all out on your own and many never do I think.

[Kreddi]

Thanks for all the input!
Maybe it's because I quit the demo too early, but the fights i was put in were too 'meh' to explore the combat system. I did mess around with weapon switching, but the early enemies died so quickly that it felt irrelevant.
Are there certain attacks you can't just hold x/square to automatically dodge and parry? Maybe like AoE magic or the sorts?
In general, what do you think of the AI; both allies and enemies?

[[sMil3]]

So its a Xenoblade for kids?

[JokiseOlli]

Not really. You will also get infinite number of potions so you basically cant die .

[Lepeon]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Are there certain attacks you can't just hold x/square to automatically dodge and parry? Maybe like AoE magic or the sorts?

I only played the demo and have killed bandersnatch, the scorpion emperor,the lv 30+ cow and the normal iron giants and yeah there is some aoe attacks that cant be auto dodge you have to roll to get a tiny iframe (at starting of the roll) to avoid damage.I dont have access to demo anymore,but the best way to confirm this is to fighting iron giants at night and when giant do his crushing atk against the grounds you will take damage on the vicinity of shockwave if you stand still with auto dodge but take no damage if you roll even if you were closer on you're roll action,this can also be the case with bandersnatch roar but i never try against it.

For the ai part of your bros their lv Vs lv of their target seems to play a role in they behavior,like:
For scorpion emperor(lv 30) who do most of his action a single target atk,when i was under lv 10 my bros were os nearly on each of the scorpion attack when i lved them up to 15 they dodge on fairly good rate and when i was lv 20 they avoided almost all of the scorpions atk.

Looks like Ai is evolutive and sounds good at first glance(well for the bros atleast).

[DeadZeus]

No, Noctis sees 0 growth in combat besides staying in the air longer.