Your feedback on the FFXV Duscae Demo (It's UPS & DOWNS) *SPOILERS*

[Wazi the pa]

For those who have played enough or more than enough of the recently released FFXV demo, you might have gained some thoughts about it whether good or bad by now.

Note that spoilers of the demo will be mentioned in this thread so if you wish not to be spoiled, come back when you have played or watched the demo.

I have just recently completed the demo (4 hours game time) so I guess I'm on the same boat.

Know that Square Enix are planning to gain feedback soon from those who have played the demo so I thought this'd be the good time to gather the feedback now. This thread will be just solely on your honest criticism & even your opinions on the demo. Don't be vague on your points, give reason(s) to them and elaborate if possible.

Detail the obvious, your experience, what you gained, what you've encountered to ruin the experience, what you thought should have been better, any bugs & glitches and more.

**MY FEEDBACK**
I'll skip the obvious designs like characters, monsters, worlds etc.
I'll also be detailing on the downs rather than the ups because I feel that they need to be seriously addressed for the final version. I know that there are plenty of obviously good designs in the demo. I'll post on the positive elements of the demo soon but you guys will have mentioned it by then.

I'll start with how the demo runs. Occasionally through my playtime of the demo, I've experienced major FPS drops. A lot more vigorous in battle sessions especially. It broke the immersion of my experience which is a let down. They're most likely going to address that problem.

This is my opinion but I feel that the character running speed isn't at all that fast. The increase in movement speed from the normal movement to running isn't that substantial. Of course, I can tell the difference but I hoped for slightly more you could say. It could just be me not getting used to it yet, we'll see.

Also, there's one aspect to the AI of the party members that could be fixed which I'm sure they are already aware of but I might as well address just in case. To make this clear, from my experience, based on their roles, they get the job done; fighting during battle & getting results out of it (not just look like as if they're doing something) & provide support to the player whenever possible.
However, when entering the demo's dungeon (the cave with the Goblins and containing the summon ability for Ramuh), because of the narrow paths in the level design, frequently the party members tend to block the pathway to proceeding deeper into the dungeon. Sometimes, I had to run towards them to get them to react to move out of the way or back track a bit of the level.

Another issue is the focus/target mechanic. Other than the hard lock which has been proven useful, the general lock-on system by pressing & holding the target button is a bit a of a nuisance to use.
Building from that, after locking on to my preferable enemy to target on, the camera follows where targeted enemy is to an extent. Almost all the time, the targeted enemy will be away from the game camera's view and many times I had to use the right stick on my game controller to move the game camera view to view the enemy I was targeting and sometimes if there's more than 1 enemy within the battle session, the target can move to a different one which makes sense but doesn't help with constantly moving the camera view.

Finally, there's the English voice acting of the Duscae Demo I must mention as well. I'll leave the worst to last but the summary is that the JP Cast sounds great but the whole English cast just needs to be re-assessed:

• For Prompto, he VA fits the character very well so the natural improvement to his voice acting on him will go smoothly.
• For Ignis, he's improved from the many months that has passed by. My expectations are now positive for him.
• For Gladiolus, he sounds like a grunt from a notorious gang. The VA needs to bring in that 'big brother kind of tone' as that's how Gladiolus' personality is. Just some refinement on him would do some good, otherwise I'm fine as it is and I'll get used to it over time.
• For Cindy..... In my opinion, she shouldn't have that heavy 'hill-billy' kind of accent on her when comparing it to the JP VA but yeah, let's see how that goes for her. Like Gladio, I'll get used to hearing her.
• Lastly, Noctis' English VA is the sole one that needs to be resolved desperately. Put it this way, Noctis' English voice does not sound how Noctis should sound at all. He has a voice too deep that in most of the time in the demo, I thought that was Gladiolus talking (thankfully the subtitles were on & distinguished the two). The way he talks as well doesn't fit to what Noctis says & how he acts. I see Noctis as a young cool, social, lazy but serious person. There were many times when Noctis sounded like a pedophile because of his mischievous & low sound. He needs to sound more youthful like Prompto but not as 'jumpy' as him. Noctis' personality to me is like the combination of some of Tidus' & Cloud's personality.

I've been playing the FF games with English VO all this while (because there was no such option for JP VO) so I really give a damn for the FFXV ENG VO.

There were maybe one of two glitches I encountered that got me stuck within objects in the demo like in the cave or near big rocks on the terrain but I feel they'll find out for themselves.



Agree or Disagree to my feedback? What's yours? What do you think of other's feedback to the demo?

 

[coffee-san]

They should have borrowed the lock-on mechanic from FF Reishiki; making target switching as instant as moving the R stick while locked on. I think it'd work better here considering that battles aren't as fast-paced in FFXV, so the sudden camera jump wouldn't feel as disorienting.
The camera also doesn't do a good enough job of strafing between enemies on its own, I'm usually getting locked onto things I'm not trying to fight.

FPS is one of the bigger ones. Got huge FPS drops during the behemoth fight(s).
Was really painful to see, demo runs at 30FPS, I remember Tabata saying that the final game may also run at 30FPS, so I'm not sure how much can be done there.

Slowdown on hit. But this has already been addressed.

Party AI. It's very unresponsive at times, trying to move them out of the way is a pain if they're obstructing your forward motion since they don't move. In battle they're somewhat useless as well, lots of times I went into critical state just to have to wait for HP regen on its own (even though I was standing right in front of allies).

As far as VA's go, I actually felt a bit disappointed with the english casting. Square is usually on point with their licensed actors.
I'd hoped that FFXV's cast would also have been as fitting as say, FFXIII's. But they all feel randomly thrown together (compared to the popular seiyuu casting for its JP counterpart.)
But I won't be playing in English anyways, the character changes due to bad/lazy translation, or just the amount of things that get lost in translation completely, already take /too/ much away from what Nomura actually wanted the characters to be like, in my opinion.

 

[Lucina]

It's good that enemies telegraph their attacks first, and that they glow to indicate a parriable attack. This helps players figure out what they want to do when it comes to attacking versus defending.

Party AI are clever and non-intrusive in battle, but they do occasionally get in the way in tight spaces. I've also had trouble in which Ignis would get hit by the Behemoth's attacks while it was focused on Noctis because he would always try to stay near Noctis. Hopefully there will be an option to customise the AI like the gambits in XII.

I like the mechanic used for summons and I think there can be a big strategic element to it. Hopefully it won't be overpowered like in the demo.

Weapons should be as they are in the demo in which no same weapon can be equipped in multiple slots. However, the final game should give players the ability to fill all the slots with just one weapon type. I think players would also enjoy having the ability to have presets for weapons. FFXIII-2 had this option with the Paradigm system, which was quite helpful.

The MP management style of gameplay is very cool. The fact that parries reward MP is good incentive for players to defend instead of just running.

I think there's a good balance between easy and difficult parrying in the demo. Lower-skilled players will still be able to do cool things and enjoy the gameplay, and higher-skilled players will be satisfied too.

I find adding new enemies to a fight the longer it drags to be a smart feature. This way, people can't exploit the fact that it's a more skill-based game to attain an unbalanced surplus of exp.

Map design is very Souls-ish in which a lot of different environments just fit in nicely together depending on where you explore in the vicinity. I'd be happy if more of this is planned for the final game.

Food buffs running out halfway through the night is a clever way of not giving players an advantage if they want to fight stronger enemies. However, this has me worried that players would find fighting enemies at night to be pointless, since they can benefit from buffs and the EXP bonus in the morning. Perhaps night time enemies could offer rare materials?

No music during exploration and instead saving them for outposts helps build atmosphere. I'm quite happy with that.

Traveling on foot is a chore. I know that the full game will offer many modes of transportation, but I hope they're not too hard to attain, seeing as Noctis gets tired from sprinting very easily.

Switching techniques in real-time can be tough because they have to be scrolled through using the D-pad. Alternatives should be explored.

An option to fine-tune the Dragoon Jump slightly before landing might be good. Enemies are constantly moving, and the damage isn't great, so sometimes the high MP cost can be hard to justify.

Ability to expand the camera manually would be helpful for certain battles that are large in scale or with enemies that run far (Sabertusks, Mesmenir).

The game is reliant on precise timing, especially Knightguard. Stable FPS is required for this. Trying to do jump cancels with DmC's 30 fps lock was already pretty tough, so I'd rather not have dipping FPS make something like that harder.

Terrain messes up the hurtbox vs hitbox of attacks. Some combos are a chore because they don't hit often on a hill.

Lock-on should be toggle. Keep soft and hard lock-on as before, but with right stick to switch targets during hard lock-on instead of soft. Once players have chosen their target, they can decide turn off hard lock-on if they choose. The problem with current soft lock-on is that the camera doesn't keep track of enemies, and yet the right analog stick is also used to switch targets.

Chaos and framerate make it difficult to manual attack Crush into Vanquish. An indicator for timing would be helpful, but not really necessary depending on how challenging the devs want it to be. If they choose not to include it, stable FPS is needed.

Item buying/selling doesn't give the option to sell in bulk.

Tactics menu should allow us to move the camera around like we're able to in the default menu. Also, there should be an option to check the status of allies like we can with enemies.

 

[Squirrel Emperor]

Even though there are noticeable technical issues, I'm not worried about it as it will most likely be addressed during the optimization period.

My main issues come from camera and targeting. It's not so much of an issue fighting one enemy but it becomes a pretty distracting issue when fighting a ton of enemies or very large enemies like the Behemoth. There needs to be an option to zoom the camera out so that we can see more of the battle area. When facing the Behemoth, I was also fighting with the camera and it ended up hurting the experience as it was quite annoying. The fun factor took a hit. Targeting needs work too as it felt difficult at times selecting what I wanted.

Other little annoyances would probably be the time it takes to get back up from getting knocked back. I find myself being impatient about it and wanting to hurry up to get back into the action.

The AI needs some work as some of the things they are suppose to do were not triggering.

And there should be party switching. Based on the demo, I don't see why it can't be an option. Who wouldn't want to play as the other characters? They seem pretty cool if you ask me.

 

[BladeRunner]

And there should be party switching. Based on the demo, I don't see why it can't be an option. Who wouldn't want to play as the other characters? They seem pretty cool if you ask me.

And don't forget Stella as a party member.

 

[coffee-san]

Even though there are noticeable technical issues, I'm not worried about it as it will most likely be addressed during the optimization period.

My main issues come from camera and targeting. It's not so much of an issue fighting one enemy but it becomes a pretty distracting issue when fighting a ton of enemies or very large enemies like the Behemoth. There needs to be an option to zoom the camera out so that we can see more of the battle area. When facing the Behemoth, I was also fighting with the camera and it ended up hurting the experience as it was quite annoying. The fun factor took a hit. Targeting needs work too as it felt difficult at times selecting what I wanted.

Other little annoyances would probably be the time it takes to get back up from getting knocked back. I find myself being impatient about it and wanting to hurry up to get back into the action.

The AI needs some work as some of the things they are suppose to do were not triggering.

And there should be party switching. Based on the demo, I don't see why it can't be an option. Who wouldn't want to play as the other characters? They seem pretty cool if you ask me.

Dragoon Jump seems more of a situational tool rather than combo fodder like the others.
ex. knocking a Garula over or putting a creature in off-guard stun is usually best opportunity for it.

Piggybacking off what you said about summons, I feel like the game hints at each summon having their own prerequisite for use (could be wrong or just too hopeful), but having every summon being a "only in case of emergencies" type of deal almost takes away from them, it also gives little incentive to not let mid-bosses/etc put you in critical state. Also, no EXP from summon use (while I approve), definitely isn't a big enough drawback to keep people from using it as a crutch.

I remember previous FFXV tech demos showing Noctis having a dodge roll independent of his MP gauge. I hope they include this again in the final game, the extra mobility in fights wouldn't hurt. Also, air combos should make a return. Older tech demos were riddled with air combat, there's almost no reason to use jump + attack in battle currently.

Not sure about the party switching anymore
It was supposed to be a thing, but I'm not sure why they changed their mind. (This was back when Ignis was still a Katana-user, though.)
Switching from KH style gameplay with the others to FF7: DoC third person shooter with Prompto would have be a refreshing touch.

 

[Squirrel Emperor]

And don't forget Stella as a party member.

It pains me to see a good looking female character design not be playable in a game like this.

 

[LeonBlade]

It just means they haven't given us that good of a reason yet their current deisgn choices on the gameplay should be that way.... E3 would maybe give us those reasons.

Nomura and Tabata have both explained why female characters aren't going to be playable in the game.

 

[Storm]

I played the demo and had fun with the battle system, only thing I want is better camera and more fluid animations (they were kinda slow sometimes).

 

[LeonBlade]

I played the demo and had fun with the battle system, only thing I want is better camera and more fluid animations (they were kinda slow sometimes).

The animations are the best part, what did you find slow?

 

[coffee-san]

The animations are the best part, what did you find slow?

he's prob talking about the frame rate in regards to that, or that whole slowdown on hit thing.

 

[Storm]

the animations are incredible, I'm talking more about the speed, I felt some attacks were too slow (could be the framerate and hitstun), like the melee combo or when you parry and counter-attack.

tho I can see they're trying to add weight to every movement, I would prefer something a bit faster and fluid (ex: like the TGS trailer)

 

[Luminous-Night]

I have to defend Noctis' voice actor. I think he is supposed to sound lethargic which in the english language is that deep gruff morning sounding voice. Now how a lethargic sounding voice is in Japanese may be different in portrayal than in English. All in all I have to hear him in more cut scenes that matter. They must have picked a voice actor they wanted to potray Noctis for a reason. AFTER ALL we dont know much about his character even though we have known about him for the past nine years. I did like all the other voice actors too.
I think people tend to be too harsh on voice actors when they clearly aren't that bad.

Other than that, the lock on camera does need a little work as well as the option for the regular camera to be positioned a little bit further behind Noctis.

During frantic battles or battles with large enemies the camera also need to be tweaked just a little bit to see whats going on.

I love the no over world music when walking. It's important for the immersion and for hearing enemies like the airship drops. I'm guessing they will put in the over world music when driving the car.

The AI needs some tweaking in regards to getting the hell out of the way!! lol No but besides that the AI was very useful.

Finally of course there is the frame rate which I am not worried about them fixing.

I know I have more little details, but those are my largest opinions.

I also like Square Enix for lip syncing the demo in English. I was not expecting that.

 

[Luminous-Night]

They should have borrowed the lock-on mechanic from FF Reishiki; making target switching as instant as moving the R stick while locked on. I think it'd work better here considering that battles aren't as fast-paced in FFXV, so the sudden camera jump wouldn't feel as disorienting.
The camera also doesn't do a good enough job of strafing between enemies on its own, I'm usually getting locked onto things I'm not trying to fight.

FPS is one of the bigger ones. Got huge FPS drops during the behemoth fight(s).
Was really painful to see, demo runs at 30FPS, I remember Tabata saying that the final game may also run at 30FPS, so I'm not sure how much can be done there.

Slowdown on hit. But this has already been addressed.

Party AI. It's very unresponsive at times, trying to move them out of the way is a pain if they're obstructing your forward motion since they don't move. In battle they're somewhat useless as well, lots of times I went into critical state just to have to wait for HP regen on its own (even though I was standing right in front of allies).

As far as VA's go, I actually felt a bit disappointed with the english casting. Square is usually on point with their licensed actors.
I'd hoped that FFXV's cast would also have been as fitting as say, FFXIII's. But they all feel randomly thrown together (compared to the popular seiyuu casting for its JP counterpart.)
But I won't be playing in English anyways, the character changes due to bad/lazy translation, or just the amount of things that get lost in translation completely, already take /too/ much away from what Nomura actually wanted the characters to be like, in my opinion.

Eh, Noctis voice acting and the others as well were very nuanced I thought. I mean they didn't just stick to one "I'm the smart guy or I'm the clown" all the time. They felt multifaceted with just the limited time in the demo.

 

[Luminous-Night]

It pains me to see a good looking female character design not be playable in a game like this.

It pains me to not have seen it yet since it became XV.....

 

[LeonBlade]

Oh, I think I forgot the reason. No matter, it's not me who's bothered by that design choice, I was just trying to understand the squirrel's reason of view.

What was the reason btw?

Nomura wanted the move to be centered around the main cast of characters with Noctis and his friends/companions with a road trip style setting. Four guys on a road trip will act very differently if a girl is with them. They will be sleeping together in tents, and of course talking about stuff guys talk about. Guys act differently around girls, and so this will disrupt the narrative.

Not everyone will be happy with this answer, but it's the one that has been given by Nomura and Tabata, and it makes a lot of sense. Final Fantasy XV is taking a new approach with both storytelling and gameplay that challenge the existing standards for what Final Fantasy has set previously. The story is what's important for me, and I like that they are focused on creating a story that is meaningful, not shoehorning in characters to appeal to everyone.

 

[Infest]

Nomura wanted the move to be centered around the main cast of characters with Noctis and his friends/companions with a road trip style setting. Four guys on a road trip will act very differently if a girl is with them. They will be sleeping together in tents, and of course talking about stuff guys talk about. Guys act differently around girls, and so this will disrupt the narrative.

Not everyone will be happy with this answer, but it's the one that has been given by Nomura and Tabata, and it makes a lot of sense. Final Fantasy XV is taking a new approach with both storytelling and gameplay that challenge the existing standards for what Final Fantasy has set previously. The story is what's important for me, and I like that they are focused on creating a story that is meaningful, not shoehorning in characters to appeal to everyone.

Completely agree.

That said I personally wouldn't be totally surprised if we get a female guest character later in the game though.

 

[Luminous-Night]

Those who are saying the voice actor is bad, they're jumping to conclusions a bit too fast.
His skill in voice acting is fine but the voice the VA worked up with for Noctis, it just doesn't suit him which is why a majority are complaining about it and I believe that's what haters of the voice actor meant. Who knows whether it's the VA's choice of voice to put up or it's the choice of part of the development team focusing on the English cast.

In the end, whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter but what does matter is that a lot of fans have voiced up to complain about it and it is their job to ensure that their design choice on the VA is final or needs tuning, which is why a re-assessment on the whole English cast will calm both sides or the argument.

You believe that it's fine but what's wrong with demanding better for the game you're excited for? Though you can't imagine & believe what could be better (for the English cast) than it is now, there have been plenty of times with SE and many other game companies & studios that have proven those same people wrong over the many years.

You can defend him all you want but it's not the VA who we're complaining about, it is the result of what he produced for Noctis' voice that's caused a bit of an uprising whether it's his fault or not, we just know the current voice doesn't suit the face & personality of Noctis.



I'm so glad they managed to implement such an important element to the cutscenes of the game. I was damn impressed with the lip syncing work SE did for FFXIII in game & CGI. Exquisite detail & very appreciated. Makes the scenes a lot more believable.

I may personally like his more gruff confident voice but I get what your laying down, and where your coming from. I just hope they stick to Nomura's vision of Noctis and his envisioned portrayal. They are the ones who know his back story and are bringing him to life. So I hope they stick to their guns when it counts and that includes his voice in whatever way they choose to portray. I have faith either way. I've been waiting for this game since it was Final Fantasy Versus XIII so I want it to live up to my expectations too like everyone else on here.

 

[Luminous-Night]

Nomura wanted the move to be centered around the main cast of characters with Noctis and his friends/companions with a road trip style setting. Four guys on a road trip will act very differently if a girl is with them. They will be sleeping together in tents, and of course talking about stuff guys talk about. Guys act differently around girls, and so this will disrupt the narrative.

Not everyone will be happy with this answer, but it's the one that has been given by Nomura and Tabata, and it makes a lot of sense. Final Fantasy XV is taking a new approach with both storytelling and gameplay that challenge the existing standards for what Final Fantasy has set previously. The story is what's important for me, and I like that they are focused on creating a story that is meaningful, not shoehorning in characters to appeal to everyone.

Beautifully put, I hope they stick to their vision while listening to a healthy dose of criticism and changing what is reasonable. I mean, we don't even know 75% to 90% of the vision being made, just tiny tibits we have heard about or have been shown (or recently played!!! ) . In the end I applaud them for their vision thus far and hope they stick to it where it counts.

 

[Squirrel Emperor]

It just means they haven't given us that good of a reason yet their current deisgn choices on the gameplay should be that way.... E3 would maybe give us those reasons.

It has been explained but they're going to have to convince people that the story can only be told with four guys and plugging in a girl would just not work out well. It's not some unheard of concept in the real world for guys to act normally and not differently around girls. That's the challenge the writers face but I think this only really matters to those who want a playable female character.

So yeah, it kinda does matter to me. Not just because Stella is a cute babe but variety is something I find appealing in games like this. In regards to the story, I really don't care if a playable female character makes sense or not. I don't really play Final Fantasy games expecting a brilliant work of literature that's going to stand the test of time. Hell, some of the things in a Final Fantasy story just don't make any sense at all.

So the story isn't the main reason why I play games like this. World design, gameplay, music, exploration... This stuff matters to me the most and must work together in unison. I personally find that if these things are firing on all cylinders, it can make a bad story tolerable. If the story is good, then it's only going to enhance it.

They should have just said something along the lines of, "If FFX-2 can have an all female cast then why can't we have an all male cast?" Or just simply say it's for the sake of being different and leave it at that.