When I first saw this title I got FFXIII-2 nightmares coming up, cause that game has some of my most hated FF music I have ever listened too. But...I was pleasantly surprised....
It's called bias good sir. FFXV's combat had depth, it just never forced the player to actually use it to get through the story...which we later found out was an intentional design choice to reduce game overs for the player (Regalia still hardest FFXV boss with game overs fight me). FFXV's AI weren't perfect either, but it was nice to know I could rely on Ignis to come save me cause that man would get into sprint mode.
I felt the AI in XV got better the more ascension nodes you unlocked, and even at the base level it's still better functioning than 7R AI, hell even Comrades AI was better, I played that almost entirely offline and anytime I needed healing they would heal me straight away by warping to me.
Thing is after going through 7R, I feel like I barely even used anything, other than basic attacks on the characters, Focused Thrust and the other Stagger boosting abilities with Cloud and the others whenever a battle started, occasional healing and a Limit Break whenever one happened, I used some other things just to see what they were but I barely used Magic and only got a summon a few times. I only really used ATB boosting Materia on Cloud and just regular healing stuff on each member with whatever loadout boosted their stats the most, I had Thunder magic on them too but it was just there to sit in a Materia slot, I used the stagger boosting abilities way more frequently.. I'm going through hard mode now and I since it carries over stuff from your 1st playthrough I can see had barely used any of the Materia, I didn't even use any of the Blue support materia until I started hard mode. It got to the point pretty early on in 7R where I was able to spam Focused Thrusts's as often as I could warp-strikes on a level 1 fresh XV play-through, which is around 2-3 warpstrikes before stasis.
Here's a thing about the 7R Materia too, some of the things you can add through it are things that are in base game XV on the combat by default, for example Deadly Dodge is an attack after a dodge which XV has on the characters by default, and the Auto-Heal materia is exactly what the bros all do and can improve via Ascension on the First-Aid node, and so on. However even the Ascension nodes for the bros has various abilities and skills they would do on their own as AI like Ignis's Venom Fang which poisons an enemy or Prompto's Scintilla which inflicts Stop on them, or Gladio's Intercept which has him guard an attack that was going to hit the player. Things like the ATB boosting Materia and accessories is essentially the same thing as the Tech boosting Ascension node and accessories that speed it up. There's like 6 ability different things per the 3 bros the AI can do aside from attacking, dodging, guarding and healing, and once you unlock them they could do any and all of them in a battle. In 7R the most you have to customize the AI are like 3 or 4 materia, the Auto-cure, Provoke, Synergy materia are the only ones coming to mind at the moment, and you have to equip those to a character you want that to happen for.
Btw that gameover thing is a standard game design process, game over "reduction" is not so much about trying to prevent game overs entirely from happening, it's about designing the methods for how a player would through their own play be able to prevent getting a gameover, and in the case of XV since it always had the aspect of "if Noct is KO it's gameover" which itself was a holdover from Versus, which I remember everyone complaining about, it's why they put in that danger state buffer in so you could be able to revive yourself as Noctis. So if Noctis is KO it's gameover, and since the other characters systems were created as their own solo adventures too it's why their systems were also gameover if they get KO, hence why when they added chara switch it's gameover if whoever you're playing as is KO, of course if you don't use a Phoenix Down.
Should also be noted that following Episode Duscae the Japanese feedback given to SE was that the game was too hard, which is party why the final game has it more easier as long as you have items and also why they added the Easy mode where Carbuncle will revive you outside of some boss battles and high level hunts, I remember in ED you could get interupted from using Potions or healing but in the final game you have full iframes when healing, I guess you can thank the Japanese players that complained it was too hard for that.
In 7R "gameoever prevention" is done through revival items too, which they have done via auto revival items you can equip on each party member, and through either Raise/Arise or Phoenix Downs which require 1 ATB cost, and in 7R it's only gameover if the entire party is KO.
But going through 7R on hard mode now, which is essentially a no item/no reliable MP recovery run, and it's honestly way easier to not die than it is in XV on a no item/no buff level 1 run. In 7R even on hard mode you still have the auto-revive accessory you can equip on each member and can still use Raise/Arise which cost 1 ATB, while in XV on a no item level 1 run the only reliable way to heal is via Ignis's regroup which costs 2 tech points, and there is no way to revive fully KO members on such a run.
