Poll of the Day > I have a hard time playing FFXIII's battle system

(+) Yeah! (+)

The timer bar plus the actions you choose and the action happening on the screen makes it difficult on understanding on what to use with the character. It seems every battle is trying to figure out how to break the enemy's defenses and hit them when they are vulnerable.

Game's just bad, most of your actions don't matter during the story.
XIII-2 somewhat fixes this but has horrible framerate / stuttering issues.

Judgmenl posted...

XIII-2 somewhat fixes this but has horrible framerate / stuttering issues.

even on PC? I hope someone fixed it.

Its terrible. Bad game.

VampireCoyote posted...

Its terrible. Bad game.

But i like the graphics :,(

The battle system is one of my favorites in the series.

13 gets good in the final few hours, but it's not worth trudging through the rest of the game for it

13-2 fixes basically every problem i had with the first game

Are you complaining because they want you to tailor your strategy for each battle instead of it being like a mindless button mash fest? You can really do it either way.

Its one of my favorite battle systems in the series, but the game purposely holds you back early on by keeping all the best characters separated.

the battle system thrives on paring certain characters together, so once youre able to put characters together it gets much better

Dmess85 posted...

It seems every battle is trying to figure out how to break the enemy's defenses and hit them when they are vulnerable.

... Yes, that is how combat typically works?

agesboy posted...

13 gets good in the final few hours, but it's not worth trudging through the rest of the game for it

Yeah, it takes way too long and even after it opens up it still has serious problems. One it doesn't get nearly enough shit for is how if the lead character dies, it's instant game over. I just don't understand that decision at all.

13-2 fixes basically every problem i had with the first game

13-2 gets so much shit but I thought it was like... 1000 times better than the first game. I hated Lightning Returns as well, so 13-2 is my favorite of the three, which isn't a massive accomplishment, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise after the massive amount of shit-talking I'd seen other people give it.

Gaawa_chan posted...

13-2 gets so much shit but I thought it was like... 1000 times better than the first game. I hated Lightning Returns as well, so 13-2 is my favorite of the three, which isn't a massive accomplishment, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise after the massive amount of shit-talking I'd seen other people give it.

lightning returns was a one time and done game imo; it wasn't horrible like a lot of people said, but i am absolutely not gonna replay that shit except under speedrunning conditions

13-2 was like... perfect for me. i honestly loved how silly it was with the time travel shit. given the nature of the 13-iverse, we weren't gonna have a chance to explore most of it, so 13-2 was a fun way to do that. and thats just the setting! the "two permanent party members, one customizable monster, three parties to swap between" system was amazing. and the music! plains of eternity......

the main story was fairly weak, with only like 5 major characters (self test: there was noel, serah, lightning counts right???, yeul, caius.... uhhhh.... the original ff13 people were there but i only remember snow and old hope...)

It has one of the best soundtracks in the series.

Overall I prefer 13 to 13-2, though in some ways they improved upon it. However the time travel stuff was too much.

They need to go back to their roots again. That's what FF9 was supposed to emulate.

I enjoyed XIII and XIII-2. Both were fun to me... I was not a fan of Lightning returns, though...

Joelypoely posted...

Overall I prefer 13 to 13-2, though in some ways they improved upon it. However the time travel stuff was too much

This was my feelings, as well...

Dmess85 posted...

even on PC? I hope someone fixed it.

They did not.
The PC version is actually worse than the PS3 version afaik.

Revelation34 posted...

They need to go back to their roots again. That's what FF9 was supposed to emulate.

FFXIV are"their roots" now. Stop living in the delusional reality that 80s/90s Squaresoft even exists today.

13 combat is honestly some of my favourite combat in a game, but it takes literally ten+ hours before you're doing more than autokilling everything, and it's not super intuitive how it works.

Iirc the commando stops the stagger bar from falling while the ravager increases it, so you typically want three ravagers and then switch one to a commando if the bar starts to fall. And then you apply buffs, debuffs, heals and tanks depending on the fight.

The commando does more damage so switch to more commandos once they're actually staggered.

Don't bother assigning people individual actions. Just focus on class switching.

And I could never figure out how to effectively use summons. I mostly just used them as a free party heal that did a small amount of damage.

Judgmenl posted...

They did not.
The PC version is actually worse than the PS3 version afaik.

FFXIV are"their roots" now. Stop living in the delusional reality that 80s/90s Squaresoft even exists today.

I can't even get the game to run without crashing. I want a refund but I'm beyond the window for refunds. The fucking thing let me get to the first time traveled city and now just crashes when I try to go anywhere.

As for Ff13, it was a welcome change from ff12 to me. But I didn't like it. Funny enough but I was wishing it had 12s system of gambits. Gambits was a great idea, everything else around it I hated. The license board, hunting, Van.
And I agree 13-2 does seem better. Wish I could play it.

With Squenix obsession with auto battlers. I think they peaked in The Last Remnant combat system. Again the game around it wasn't great, but the combat was quite good I feel.

what problems does this game have. it seems to run just fine. put in the disk and it plays.maybe you have to clean your disk

It can be pretty complex at times, but the problem is it is only complex for a handful of battles. Most of them just involve using auto-battle with one Commando and two Ravengers (or maybe a Sentinal and Medic thrown in once in a while). And by the time you get to the complex part you are already in the end game.

But that is only one of FFXIII's numerous problems.

FF13 has the grand distinction of being the only mainline Final Fantasy that is straight up a bad videogame. The battle system develops a kind of mindless comfort as your characters develop but it never feels actively satisfying or rewarding. I eventually just maxed everyone out with cheat engine just to see how it feels to be truly OP and it was such a massive letdown.

Dmess85 posted...

It seems every battle is trying to figure out how to break the enemy's defenses and hit them when they are vulnerable.

That's literally the whole point of every battle. Break their defense, stagger them, and then hit them hard.

Use Synergist/Sabateour to buff yourself/debuff the enemy. User ravager to build the stagger gauge. Then when they're staggered hit them hard with commando. If you're low on health then use Medic, with maybe one sentinel to mitigate damage while healing. You need to be able switch freely to various combinations on the fly as the battle changes.

These were my most used setups.

Sabateour/Synergist/Ravager - For Buff/Debuff
Ravager/Ravager/Commando - For Building Stagger Gauge
Commando/Commando/Commando - Once they're staggered
Medic/Medic/Sentinal - To Heal
Medic/Medic/Medic - if you desperately need to heal
Sentinal/Sentinal/Sentinal - for if the enemy is about to use a super hard hitting desperation move that does massive damage (obviously switch to this before the attack hits to mitigate damage)

Each character has their strengths for the classes as well

Lightning - best for Ravager and Commando
Snow - best for Sentinel
Hope - best for Medic and Ravager, maybe synergist to an extent
Vanille - best for Sabateour
Fang - best for Commando
Sazh - best for Synergist and Ravager

fettster777 posted...

Use Synergist/Sabateour to buff yourself/debuff the enemy. User ravager to build the stagger gauge. Then when they're staggered hit them hard with commando. If you're low on health then use Medic, with maybe one sentinel to mitigate damage while healing. You need to be able switch freely to various combinations on the fly as the battle changes.

this is what im getting used right now is the combinations of characters and the roles that they fill. Sometimes its a lot guess work figuring out who does what best.

I had much less trouble with the FFXIII battle system on PC then I did when I first tried the game on Ps3. I had much less trouble in a certain area that I couldn't get past on the Ps3 that didn't cause me any real problem on the PC. (I didn't beat the game until I played it on PC.)

I remember getting a theme for my PS3 for beating the final boss in like 10 seconds or something. I think it was the final form of the final boss

SomeUsername529 posted...

the only mainline Final Fantasy that is straight up a bad videogame.

It's better than VIII tho

Metalsonic66 posted...

It's better than VIII tho

It really isn't, not by a long shot.

The only bad mainline FF is 15

13 is a solid entry despite its flaws.

Dikitain posted...

It really isn't, not by a long shot.

More like by a mile

Judgmenl posted...

They did not.
The PC version is actually worse than the PS3 version afaik.

FFXIV are"their roots" now. Stop living in the delusional reality that 80s/90s Squaresoft even exists today.

Nobody wants a modern era Final Fantasy.

Judgmenl posted...

They did not.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIII-2

as of now, the only issue without a fix is a shadow calculation bug

the answer to the question "I hope someone fixed it" is "they did"

agesboy posted...

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIII-2

as of now, the only issue without a fix is a shadow calculation bug

the answer to the question "I hope someone fixed it" is "they did"

Yea, the only real problem I had when playing it was the occasional crashing, and that was fixed with the 4GB Patch (which most PC gamers know is safe to run on pretty much any game).

In fact, the only game I had any issue with in the trilogy was Lightning Returns. It felt like the laziest since it was (I am pretty sure), running in a PS3 emulator and didn't have any HD patches applied to it. It also defaulted to the Japanese voice acting, which was odd considering it was the only game in the trilogy to do that. Like, I know the English voice acting is bad but come on...