Final Fantasy XV - General News Thread

[Tornak]

Let's see what they do in the stream and what people that play the game have to say.

But holy shit, that was bad. He literally did nothing but receiving attacks and occasionally dodging. He only attacked at the beginning and that was about it. I know things are pretty hard to do in front of such an audience, but I really don't think this was the right demo to show at a conference.

Do you think they'll have a trailer at Sony? Because I'm pretty dissapointed (first ME, now this. Oh well).

 

[DrBretto]

Watched it again. It wasn't as bad as the first time, either. The guy playing it really does suck, though.

I'm more concerned about this essentially confirming spoilers that are out there. Really not a big fan of the internet in general right now.

And don't ask me to link those spoilers, let's keep that crap off of here. If you're curious enough, you'll find them yourselves. Might as well look at them now, though, since people will be talking about them like they're old news from here on out.

 

[Omegataco]

I actually counted the amount of time he just spent defending/getting hit, and it was about 1 minute and 30 seconds of it. He also blatantly ignores like 3 opportunities to warp in and attack the arm. I still really feel like this was just done on purpose to prolong the demo, since they seemed to have this particular stage demo set up to end right when they shatter Titan's arm.

 

[Death Penalty]

It was more of a case of bad performance by the tester. And this is a demo, not the full thing. Let's not start throwing venom at the Archean fights yet.

Demo means "demonstration" here, not unfinished slice of gameplay. This is clearly right out of the full game and people have a right to be concerned. It's not just that the player is terrible either, though that's certainly part of it. It's that the fight itself looks really really bland.

 

[Tornak]

Watched it again. It wasn't as bad as the first time, either. The guy playing it really does suck, though.

I'm more concerned about this essentially confirming spoilers that are out there. Really not a big fan of the internet in general right now.

And don't ask me to link those spoilers, let's keep that crap off of here. If you're curious enough, you'll find them yourselves. Might as well look at them now, though, since people will be talking about them like they're old news from here on out.

Wait, really? Luckily I'm still on my finals, so I haven't read anything (managed to avoid Uncharted 4 ones, as I won't be able to play until next week).

And yes, of course this doesn't represent the entire game. But it's what they chose to show to people. It's a shitty choice, unless there were problems with the player (or he was just bad) and, if you actually fucking hit the Titan, the game looks fun. But as it is right now, it was just a guy getting wrecked by a giant arm and even if he had actually done something to his enemies, I think it would have been better having Noctis fight enemy soldiers or something like that, as tired as people might be of that.

I really doubt that Tabata is happy with what happened there. What a shitshow, lads (especially since it's on one of the most viewed conferences). Hopefully they'll do a good one during the streaming. I could see Tabata, blunt and direct as he is, actually adressing this lol.

 

[DrBretto]

Demo means "demonstration" here, not unfinished slice of gameplay. This is clearly right out of the full game and people have a right to be concerned. It's not just that the player is terrible either, though that's certainly part of it. It's that the fight itself looks really really bland.

I didn't think it looked that dull at all beyond the guy playing doing his best to make it dull. I'm not sure how much more you thought would happen there. I was a little bit disappointed that it wasn't more aerial, for example, but the fight it self looked fairly epic.

Have you watched it a second time by any chance? I've found I liked it a little more each time I've watched it.

 

[Omegataco]

Another minor thing that I've noticed is that they've renamed "Defend" to "Phase". Seems like a more appropriate name for it in my opinion.

 

[Nova]

I didn't think it looked that dull at all beyond the guy playing doing his best to make it dull. I'm not sure how much more you thought would happen there. I was a little bit disappointed that it wasn't more aerial, for example, but the fight it self looked fairly epic.

Have you watched it a second time by any chance? I've found I liked it a little more each time I've watched it.

I agree, looked nowhere near as awful as the internet insinuated outside of the player. I expected worse honestly.

 

[Death Penalty]

I didn't think it looked that dull at all beyond the guy playing doing his best to make it dull. I'm not sure how much more you thought would happen there. I was a little bit disappointed that it wasn't more aerial, for example, but the fight it self looked fairly epic.

Have you watched it a second time by any chance? I've found I liked it a little more each time I've watched it.

I did like it better the second time, but it's still not a well-designed encounter. The goal seems to be to just survive, rather than actually fight Titan. Titan himself just uses the same few arms swings without any interesting special attacks mixed in- you just dodge every time his lazily rolling arm comes by. So no, not what I was looking for in a summon boss fight at all. The glaring lack of interesting ways to combat the boss is clearly evident here, and if the entire boss fight plays out similarly I'll be extremely disappointed.

What I would have liked to see was some technical combat, attacks that need to be approached in different ways, strategy that must be implemented well to win. This was a slow dodgefest with a huge message across the screen telling you exactly what you have to do to win.

 

[AtSwimTwoBirds]

I didn't think it looked that dull at all beyond the guy playing doing his best to make it dull. I'm not sure how much more you thought would happen there. I was a little bit disappointed that it wasn't more aerial, for example, but the fight it self looked fairly epic.

Have you watched it a second time by any chance? I've found I liked it a little more each time I've watched it.

The set-piece itself looked awesome. But, holy crap, that guy almost went out of his way to make it look boring. With Noct's aerial abilities, he should have been buzzing around Titan like a wasp. Not just standing there, doing nothing.

 

[DrBretto]

Exactly. It was a dodgefest because the guy gave up on actually controlling anything after about 12 seconds. After that, he basically just rand back and forth and tried to dodge. He made it look about as terrible as someone can make it look.

Hopefully, just like the PD, which also made my heart sink at first, we'll get to see someone play it right and all will be well again.

Either way, I kind of always suspected that all of the Summon fights would be set pieces anyway.

 

[Death Penalty]

Attacking Titan's hand didn't matter until the prompt for Blizzara showed up and Titan was pulled down. What exactly do you think a good player would bring to this fight? I admit that the player playing was awful, but there is nothing appealing about the fight in general. A better player would not fix Titan's slow, repetitive attacks or the frustrating camera or the flawed encounter design. Unless the fight takes a huge swing in a different direction after Titan loses his arm, this is a really awful sign for the boss fights that are supposed to sell this game.

It looks to me like they've really sacrificed technical action in favor of this weird compromise system and it's going to keep dragging combat down.

 

[wmlk]

The fact that the entire point of the demo was to stall for time, and that seemingly nothing else would have mattered for those two-and-a-half minutes is a glaring problem.

 

[Tornak]

I seriously, sometimes (many times), don't get S-E's PR and Marketing teams, especially surrounding FF XV.

 

[wmlk]

Can we even use the lasers/weapons the Troops are using to attack Titan?

 

[AtSwimTwoBirds]

Can we even use the lasers/weapons the Troops are using to attack Titan?

Yeah, seriously, why where they even there?

 

[DrBretto]

It looks to me like they've really sacrificed technical action in favor of this weird compromise system and it's going to keep dragging combat down.

I think it's more likely that it was a dumbed down version for the demo for the show.

I'm gonna wait until I see a decent player doing it. An even then, I'm not sure what else it's supposed to do. It's not going to cure cancer or anything.

Can we even use the lasers/weapons the Troops are using to attack Titan?

One of those questions that'll probably be answered by watching someone actually play the encounter rather than run around back and forth dodging. If it's anything like a FFXIV type of deal, which would make sense, then you probably have to interact with them in order to win the fight.

 

[DrBretto]

Dumbed down demo version confirmed.

 

[Death Penalty]

I think it's more likely that it was a dumbed down version for the demo for the show.

I'm gonna wait until I see a decent player doing it. An even then, I'm not sure what else it's supposed to do. It's not going to cure cancer or anything.

Asking for technical gameplay in an action title is asking for a cure for cancer? Alright. I'm not expecting huge things here, I'm just not looking at this through rose-colored hope glasses. If you missed it, the entire point of the demo is in fact to stall. The dodging around is part of the encounter! Even disregarding that extremely questionable choice, Titan is pulling a Deadeye in Duscae thing were he constantly attacks without providing satisfying openings.

You can call dumbed down if you want, but this is probably exactly how this fight plays out in the full game. If not, then that just confirms it was as terrible a demonstration as I was saying.

 

[AtSwimTwoBirds]

Dumbed down demo version confirmed.

I'd say so. 'Special Missions' are often used to not fully spoil sequences.
The Phantom Pain had numerous E3, TGS 'Special Missions' that were just simplified variants of the main mission.