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Final Fantasy XV Episode Duscae |OT| Brought to you by Coleman™

We already discussed this a while ago. I hope they do something cool with it like having Mitsuto Suzuki make some Electronica songs (the genre he's most passionate about and is the best in amongst all the SE composers) or even remixes of classic FF tracks for an urban/modern radio channel of Noctis' home city. Imagine driving around Lucis at night with some Trance/Deep House playing :D

Trance and House, my two favorite genres! I'd love that!

not deep house, I mean I like it, but house >>>>> deep house

Yeah, but that would be too confusing after 25 years of magic using MP. What would the magic bar be called then if they'd keep MP for motion stuff?^^

mp
 

wmlk

Member
I still can't believe Tabata kept that lousy jump from October in for the demo.

Like, you have this dude who can go Limit Break all of a sudden, but he can't jump two feet off the ground.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Well

Start -> through main story -> kill behemoth with summon -> get 4th Armiger (e.g. I'm playing the goblin cave 'as intended' by not picking it up prior) -> end game -> grind to lv45 -> kill Behemoth without using items, summon or cover

Runtime 3h30m

Taking forever to render lol

I still can't believe Tabata kept that lousy jump from October in for the demo.

Like, you have this dude who can go Limit Break all of a sudden, but he can't jump two feet off the ground.

Honestly, the jump goes up to his mid-chest level. That's the height of rocks you can jump to. It's 'ok' for a default, unboosted jump, but both the animation and camerawork make it look jankier than it should be. Also probably doesn't help that it's a little 'more responsive' than the rest of Noctis' moveset, adding to the feeling of jankiness considering how animation-locked everything else from starting a jog to changing direction is.
 

DeSolos

Member
Honestly, the jump goes up to his mid-chest level. That's the height of rocks you can jump to. It's 'ok' for a default, unboosted jump, but both the animation and camerawork make it look jankier than it should be. Also probably doesn't help that it's a little 'more responsive' than the rest of Noctis' moveset, adding to the feeling of jankiness considering how animation-locked everything else from starting a jog to changing direction is.

The jump is a bit too unforgiving. Not sure if this is a thing, but it feels like the gravity is too high. It gives a snappy feel to the jump on the way down, but when platforming in a natural landscape with irregularly shaped objects it's frustrating.

For a prince with the magic power of warping up to high places, it's a bit inconsistent that he's bested by boulders and barriers that are head height.

I think their is a lot of opportunity for interesting platforming given his theoretical abilities and the fantastical landscape. It feels limiting that there is so much that is unexplorable vertically. It would be cool to be able to climb those arches for example. I guess you can blame Xenoblade a bit, but there is sort of an expectation in open world games that "If you can see it you can go to it" and crazy structures like that demand attention.
(sadly the middle sections of the arches currently have no collision so they may not have considered such exploration or have decided against it)
 

raven777

Member
I still can't believe Tabata kept that lousy jump from October in for the demo.

Like, you have this dude who can go Limit Break all of a sudden, but he can't jump two feet off the ground.

Tabata basically said magic and aerial movements are pushed backed to later part of the development.....so I guess it just wasn't ready for the demo.
 

DeSolos

Member
Wait a second...does Ramuh have an Ixion head on his staff?

maxresdefault.jpg

ixion_ffx_by_candycanecroft-d4dt9sy.png

Looks like it!
 

DeSolos

Member
That was a neat little detail.

I'm curious if they'll get some of the odder summons in the game.

I'm hoping for Anima, but I know that's more of a Toriyama FF summon... And the FFXIII version of it... WHAT EVEN WAS THAT!?

But real talk, Doomtrain needs to be in this game. Modern setting, story revolving around death... It's a perfect fit!
 
would love to see more combo variety in the final game.. like more weapon slot between the opener and finisher. I like the fact you can manually "switch" weapons in your attack string due to timing.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Rather have hot-swappable loadouts. Opener Combo Finisher already allows you to have all different kinds of timings, ranges and effects within a single combo. Any more would just be needless complexity for a given set of combo attacks.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Eden and Neo Bahamut should be in this game.
 
Considering that XII had airships named after summons and XIII had airships named after towns if we don't get a summon named after a town I'm going to be incredibly mildly disappointed. A summon named Lindblum. That does gravity damage.

To be honest though, I'm only expecting Noctis to have a few summons available. 5 or 6 at best, with Leviathan maybe limited to a boss encounter summoned by someone else. Already got Ramuh in the game, the usual quartet of Ifrit, Shiva, Odin and Bahamut and something new. Considering we've had nothing come up about elemental strengths or weaknesses and the only purpose of summons is to cause a ton of damage that might even be too many. Maybe get rid of Odin and stick Carbuncle in there, I dunno.
 
I don't think the 5th health bar means anything at this point. It is more of a big/unfinished code than something important.

Of course, we might have a 5th party member but the random occurrence of a 5th health bar shouldn't be taken seriously in the demo.

I am genuinely curious if it is possible to rip off the demo from PS4/XBO and look into the files. There is bound to plenty of unfinished/hidden stuff that can shed more light on the final game.
 

raven777

Member
I would love to have variety in summons. Not every summon is just wipe. Different conditions to call summons for different summons, different types of actions, etc.
 
Rather have hot-swappable loadouts. Opener Combo Finisher already allows you to have all different kinds of timings, ranges and effects within a single combo. Any more would just be needless complexity for a given set of combo attacks.
yea, but I think more variety wouldn't hurt the system as it is of now. More weapon slots between opener and finisher would give you more options to choose effects for example. When doing a combo with a MP regaining weapon and your MP bar is healthy, you could just switch to another weapon with a different effect. I think it would be fun and very effective.
 

Philippo

Member
I think the summons will be: Ramuh, Ifrith, Shiva, Siren and Odin (imagine a duel between him and Noct!).
Titan, Leviathan and Bahamut too, but they'll first be part of enormous setpieces.
 
I wonder how the summons will work in the final time. It seems like it'd be an easy way to just not bother if you get stuck on a hard boss. Get the summon out and let it do all the work lol. Kind of like previous FFs really.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Wish the final boss had a super cool super killer move, kinda like Sephiroth's Supernova and Ultimecia's Great Attractor.
 
I caved and grabbed Type-0 on the way home from class today, and finally got a taste of Episode Duscae for myself. Rather than go through a sweeping list of pros and cons, I'll just list what I gameplay elements think should be improved or changed (and it will include some of what has already been discussed to death), though I'm assuming the biggest system complaints are already on the agenda to be addressed, since their implementations are blatantly ineffective as it stands.

- R1 should be like the KH lock-on. Just straight up rip the lock-on from Kingdom Hearts. The camera needs to follow the lock-on target at all times. Oddly enough, the R3 lock-on DOES track your target, but stops tracking when you are attacking (i.e. when camera tracking is most important). Additionally, make it easy to switch targets while locked on.

- Elaborate on the "stop attacking and then attack as soon as your weapon disappears to trigger a finisher" quirk. I'm assuming it's intentional, but it adds a nice bit of substance to the combat and rewards you for going beyond holding Square.

- Similarly, add some depth to the guarding (L1) system that rewards players for timing their guards instead of staying in the defensive stance. Maybe make a "critical dodge" that restores MP instead of consumes it.

- Let Noctis run further while not in combat. Seriously. I get that in the main game we'll have chocobos and the car, but there's nothing being lost by letting the player run forever when they aren't in combat.

- Either give us a mini-map with enemy locations on it, or create ambushes where we get attacked without any warning. It's super annoying for that red bar to show up only to see no enemies around, wondering if something is going to attack you, if you're wandering in to something you can't see, or if there's something barely nearby that you'll never actually engage if you just keep walking the way you were going.

- Make more warp points! It's fun to warp up to take a breather and get a good view of what's below, and plan out your attack if you're in combat. While they aren't entirely rare to find, it'd be nice to warp up onto rock formations, roofs, etc. Also, it's kind of a PITA to get locked on to a warp point, especially in the heat of battle.

Other comments:
- I reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally like this combat system already. By the second battle, I was already like "Ooooohhhhh yes, this will do."
- I understand the criticisms about being locked into animations, but didn't personally find them problematic. If an ability had a bigger wind-up period, like Full Thrust or Dragoon Jump, I'd make sure the enemy was stunned in some capacity, or that I have distance from other enemies before using them.
- MP never gave me a problem. In my 3 hours of playtime, I hit Stasis maybe twice. The weapons you have are surprisingly effective at regenerating your MP through regular attacking.
- I had a surprisingly easy time in the cave, with none of my party over level 19. Maybe a lot of people weren't using the food buffs, but I absolutely blew through that place alternating between Tempest to clear away Goblins when swarmed, and Drain Blade to offensively heal. Tempest would stagger or knock enemies down enough for me to get a good bit of MP back from regular attacks.
- The goblin cave was super fun, and the cave battle theme is amazing!
- Noctis is a really likeable protagonist. He's very much the straight-man of the group, there to keep everyone else' exaggerated personalities and mannerisms in check, but he doesn't come off as a jerk.
- I actually... enjoyed (?) the character banter....? Yeah, I dunno. It grew on me, despite really disliking a lot of the dialogue and voice work while watching streams and the like. That said, some of it is very clunky, with mismatched tone between characters. This happens a lot with Ignis.
- That game has a lot of charming touches. As dumb as it may sound, seeing bags of Gyshal Greens, or walking into the gas station and looking around at items on the shelf put a smile on my face.
- The game is visually impressive in terms of character modeling, animation, and lighting, but it is currently suffering from lowered res, non-existent AA, some muddy textures, and perhaps related, poor or nonexistent AF. The AF problem in particular is bad when you're in the big open spaces with the camera panned closer to the ground. I have no doubt this will improve as development goes on, but it's more a question of how much it will improve. The lack of shadows on distance brush creates nasty blobs of color when shrubbery is further ahead.

All in all, there was nothing in the demo that I found inherently problematic at a design level. Nearly every criticism I could levy comes down to the systems either being unfinished/unimplemented (lock-on, jumping, cooking) or simply not fleshed out since it's early-game (like the number of weapons/abilities we had access to.)
 

raven777

Member
- R1 should be like the KH lock-on. Just straight up rip the lock-on from Kingdom Hearts. The camera needs to follow the lock-on target at all times. Oddly enough, the R3 lock-on DOES track your target, but stops tracking when you are attacking (i.e. when camera tracking is most important). Additionally, make it easy to switch targets while locked on.

I think it should be press R1 to soft-lock(not holding it), R3 to hard-lock

- Elaborate on the "stop attacking and then attack as soon as your weapon disappears to trigger a finisher" quirk. I'm assuming it's intentional, but it adds a nice bit of substance to the combat and rewards you for going beyond holding Square.

It's nice system. I think they didn't explain it so players can figure it out I guess.

- Similarly, add some depth to the guarding (L1) system that rewards players for timing their guards instead of staying in the defensive stance. Maybe make a "critical dodge" that restores MP instead of consumes it.

Manually pressing the L1 at the right time is suppose to cosume less MP. But I really haven't noticed it on the demo. Also there is an advanced skill called Knightsguard where you press L1 just as you get hit, and you refill the damage and not use any MP.

- Let Noctis run further while not in combat. Seriously. I get that in the main game we'll have chocobos and the car, but there's nothing being lost by letting the player run forever when they aren't in combat.

There is suppose to be a food buff that let's you run for unlimited time.

- Either give us a mini-map with enemy locations on it, or create ambushes where we get attacked without any warning. It's super annoying for that red bar to show up only to see no enemies around, wondering if something is going to attack you, if you're wandering in to something you can't see, or if there's something barely nearby that you'll never actually engage if you just keep walking the way you were going.

Agree. They said the map menu will be expanded more in the final game. mini-map is a must-have.

- Make more warp points! It's fun to warp up to take a breather and get a good view of what's below, and plan out your attack if you're in combat. While they aren't entirely rare to find, it'd be nice to warp up onto rock formations, roofs, etc. Also, it's kind of a PITA to get locked on to a warp point, especially in the heat of battle.

I assume there will be more in the final game. But at the moment warp point seems to only act as a cover spot for you to heal your mp. I hope final game offers more than that on this regard.
 

raven777

Member
I just keep on getting toast, does it give your different food after a while? (because that would make the dungeon soooo much easier)
Thanks for the help!

you need right ingredients. Kills some Garulas to get Galurla meat. And buy the corresponding ingredient that goes with Galurla meat.
 
Sadly, I came out disappointed with the demo, which is a shame because I was really excited for it, I wrote up some points of interest to a circle of gaming friends:

It was really nice have something new and fresh to play from the team, however, it's also pretty much convinced me that I might possibly be skipping out on it.

I'm not gonna dive greatly into flaws that the demo showcased, but the framerate would stutter every 2/3 seconds or so - but that's optimization.
Now the gameplay itself in the demo is actually pretty tedious, the combat system whilst fun at first, however I felt it got really dull after 20 minutes.

I was holding square down to continuously melee combo enemies, and then every so often using my 'Technique Move' (costing MP) by pressing Triangle - I didn't really feel a challenge whatsoever. The combat felt slightly reminiscent of Dragon Age- just stripped down to fuck.

It's pretty clear the map is going to be ginormous, it was taking me 5/6 minutes to walk from one objective to the other (and this is a demo)

Like that statement if you will, however there was nothing exciting to see or do in these 5/6 minutes of running through the woods, just run and occasional encounter weak enemies, that I just didn't even wanna fight in the end - boring.

There are a couple of really slow interactive moving scenes, that again were just long and annoying.

One was
moving though these rocks, all I could do was hold up on to move forward, but I had to hold this for like 3 minutes.

Following that you have to
sneak and follow Deadeye (Behemoth) to find it's lair,
this is a dull process of holding L1 to enter sneak/cover mode and walking a few footsteps, but not getting to close as you'll get seen and have to start again - this goes on for about 5 mins, nothing to do but follow extremely slowly.

XP system I still really can't comment on, there was no unlockable moves/powers/grids to upgrade in certain areas.
I was just gaining levels and improving my HP/MP count.
You also don't gain XP until you sleep at a rest point, which is pretty annoying.

It is however a massive fuck you to everyone who enjoyed the XIII series, gone are the days of tight corridors.

From what this demo shows, it's the most western FF I've ever seen or played, to the point of, it no longer actually feels like an FF game.
I'm gonna have to see a lot more and be persuaded big time to want to invest, this isn't the final fantasy I've been waiting for.
 

KupoNut

Member
- Similarly, add some depth to the guarding (L1) system that rewards players for timing their guards instead of staying in the defensive stance. Maybe make a "critical dodge" that restores MP instead of consumes it.

Yeah, I really like to see guarding being made more rewarding like that, supposedly now your guard consumes less MP when done with the right timing, but it's not that noticeable. Restoring some MP when you guard at the right moment would be great.

Might also benefit from having an MP bar floating over Noctis similar to the HP bar does now when taking damage, but then when MP is restored from a guard.

Curious to see when/how we can submit all of our feedback, or, Wan, are you reading this?
 
After my initial disappointment I have ended up loving the demo.

The combat system grew on me in a big way, I realised there was already lots of depth to it if I was taking the time to use all the features it had.

The ending tease was exhilarating!

I am very optimistic now over this game.

I think the camping feature needs to be fleshed out. They have a fantastic opportunity to flesh out characters and the world here. I want them to make the camp explorable in the night, or just have a feature where you can talk to every other character to get their thoughts on the day. I think this would be a great additional feature! Is anything like this confirmed and was just removed from the demo?

Edit: And I'm afraid I can't get over no overworld music. Even if the track just plays once when you reach the map, then stops.
 

KupoNut

Member
After my initial disappointment I have ended up loving the demo.

The combat system grew on me in a big way, I realised there was already lots of depth to it if I was taking the time to use all the features it had.

The ending tease was exhilarating!

I am very optimistic now over this game.

I think the camping feature needs to be fleshed out. They have a fantastic opportunity to flesh out characters and the world here. I want them to make the camp explorable in the night, or just have a feature where you can talk to every other character to get their thoughts on the day. I think this would be a great additional feature! Is anything like this confirmed and was just removed from the demo?

Edit: And I'm afraid I can't get over no overworld music. Even if the track just plays once when you reach the map, then stops.

No, although I hope something like that makes it into the game. I could see it getting hard when you camp a lot, and I'm sure there are story cutscenes that will trigger when setting up camp, but I hope ther's room for optional night banter too.

As for overworld music, would be cool if the overworld music was a lite version of the combat track, and when you go into combat, a bunch of instruments get added to make it sound... combatesque. Similar to how Fire Emblem Awakening does it. I think it would be jarring if you switched between overworld-encounter music-battle track every so often with the current frequency of random encounters.
 

TheChaos0

Member
No, although I hope something like that makes it into the game. I could see it getting hard when you camp a lot, and I'm sure there are story cutscenes that will trigger when setting up camp, but I hope ther's room for optional night banter too.

As for overworld music, would be cool if the overworld music was a lite version of the combat track, and when you go into combat, a bunch of instruments get added to make it sound... combatesque. Similar to how Fire Emblem Awakening does it. I think it would be jarring if you switched between overworld-encounter music-battle track every so often with the current frequency of random encounters.

The game *needs* overworld/location music. You need something to entertain you as you are walking for 5 minutes. The music changing often is no different from any other random encounter rpg, only here the encounters are not random.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
I'm -still- trying to figure out stagger mechanics for Deadeye. Sometimes it takes a shit ton of swings and full thrusts, other times, like two aerial attacks (simple jump + attack) bowls him over.

Also the damage he takes makes no sense. There doesn't seem to be a solid correlation between when the different parts of him are Off-Guard and when he takes honest-to-God 4x damage compared to usual.

This is coming from someone who has staggering every other mob in the game down to a science, mind you.
 

wmlk

Member
Tabata basically said magic and aerial movements are pushed backed to later part of the development.....so I guess it just wasn't ready for the demo.
Yeah, either case people get the impression that the jump will be trash in the final game.

Magic is different. People assume it's going to be integrated well into the final game.
 

wmlk

Member
I'm -still- trying to figure out stagger mechanics for Deadeye. Sometimes it takes a shit ton of swings and full thrusts, other times, like two aerial attacks (simple jump + attack) bowls him over.

Also the damage he takes makes no sense. There doesn't seem to be a solid correlation between when the different parts of him are Off-Guard and when he takes honest-to-God 4x damage compared to usual.

This is coming from someone who has staggering every other mob in the game down to a science, mind you.
There are different lock on spots. I think it had something to do with attacks its hind legs.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Dude, believe me, I've tried virtually every imaginable thing I can think of, including specific combinations of legs, core + tail, head, right side (deadeye, blind spot, etc) you name it. His hind legs even have two separate lock-on spots (per leg, I mean). I can't make sense of it watching footage from over 10 different encounters. As in, actually paying careful attention and not having to devote brainpower to actually PLAYING the game.

The -only- predictability I can find in his AI is that attacking his head causes him to use his Parry move a lot more.

edit: Actually, that also may be down to positioning more than attacking a specific point. Garulas and Sabertusks both can be forced to use their Parry moves from the front, for example.
 

DSix

Banned
Is it confirmed that the current MP bar will be a different one than the Magic Points used for magic?

Because it's been bothering me that the Phantom blade limit break is linked to the MP bar. Doing this will actively discourage players to use offensive magic (just like in KH2 when if you wanted to use limit breaks you had to give up on spells), and I really don't like that.
 

Koozek

Member
I don't think the 5th health bar means anything at this point. It is more of a big/unfinished code than something important.

Of course, we might have a 5th party member but the random occurrence of a 5th health bar shouldn't be taken seriously in the demo.

I am genuinely curious if it is possible to rip off the demo from PS4/XBO and look into the files. There is bound to plenty of unfinished/hidden stuff that can shed more light on the final game.

Yeah, someone should try and look for an unused 3D model named Stella :D
 
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