SPOILERS/SPECULATION: Final Fantasy XV Spoiler and Speculation Thread

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Lulcielid

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#61
Knowing that the season pass has DLCs (provisonally) named "episode [party member]", Do you think that we might get to play individually as them?
 

Lulcielid

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#62
In one hand I think it might be possible since they already have the mechaniques and animation but on the other hand (from my perspective) it seens that most of their mechaniques are closely linked to make synergy with Noctis.
 
Sep 26, 2013
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#66
It still has the issue that there´s zero reason to play with characters that are in my aspects inferior to Noctis gameplay-wise.
I think the differing styles are enough of a reason. Ignis' ability to throw knives, the fact that Gladio's fighting style is more refined than Noctis' and that he hits harder, Prompto's... uniqueness. They also seem to have access to several skills and abilities Noctis himself has not demonstrated! The party seems useful enough that I'd really like to be able to play as them.
 

LeonBlade

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#67
I think the differing styles are enough of a reason. Ignis' ability to throw knives, the fact that Gladio's fighting style is more refined than Noctis' and that he hits harder, Prompto's... uniqueness. They also seem to have access to several skills and abilities Noctis himself has not demonstrated! The party seems useful enough that I'd really like to be able to play as them.
Is it really worth $30 though? That's half the price of the game itself.
 
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#68
Is it really worth $30 though? That's half the price of the game itself.
Oh if we're referring directly to the season pass, it comes with additional story content and possibly a full-blown expansion so... yeah, I'd buy it even in the likely event it doesn't let you control your party members. I wouldn't shell out thirty bucks for the sole ability to control the rest of the crew though, nah.
 

Tornak

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#69
God knows (and probably some of you, if you remember the forum during the 2014 reveal!) that I really, really wanted character switching back. It was my biggest dissapointment during that TGS.

Now, however, I see it like LeonBlade: Noctis basically does it all, so I don't really see the point. I guess it's obvious that, if I really wanted the character switching mechanic back, was so that I could play as Cor, who is my favourite character design in a FF in a long time. But considering he's not a permanent party member (it looked like that, or at least a prominent one, during the E3 2013 reveal), I don't really care, as much as it pains me!

I've never bought DLC nor was planning to (apart from Bloodborne and The Witcher 3's ones), but this could be a game I do that with. Let's see how it goes (the content, the timing, the price, if it wasn't originally developed -and then removed- for the base game, unlike certain ME3 one...)
 
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LeonBlade

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#70
God knows (and probably some of you, if you remember the forum during the 2014 reveal!) that I really, really wanted character switching back. It was my biggest dissapointment during that TGS.

Now, however, I see it like LeonBlade: Noctis basically does it all, so I don't really see the point. I guess it's obvious that, if I really wanted the character switching mechanic back, was so that I could play as Cor, who is my favourite character design in a FF in a long time. But considering he's not a permanent party member (it looked like that, or at least a prominent one, during the E3 2013 reveal), I don't really care, as much as it pains me!

I've never bought DLC nor was planning to (apart from Bloodborne and The Witcher 3's ones), but this could be a game I do that with. Let's see how it goes (the content, the timing, the price, if it wasn't originally developed -and then removed- for the base game, unlike certain ME3 one...)
Cor is the only interesting character to play as in my opinion because he wields a completely different weapon type to anything Noctis has and has his own fighting style. He doesn't even use magic to summon his weapon, he just carries it with him like a bad ass.

By the way, of course I'm not saying anyone should not want to control the characters, if they add in the functionality I will actually be glad they do as it's just more features, but personally I feel like the reason they didn't go through with it wasn't because of some technical limitations, but more along the line of "how are we going to balance this in a way that makes it not pointless".

Nomura originally mentioned things like free-aim with Noctis for Prompto but ultimately that would mean that the gun for Noctis would be kind of useless and it would mean having to switch to Prompto, move him in place, and firing off a shot or two just to do one thing then switching back. I feel like they never even really put much thought or development into it and just figured they were going to do it. There's a reason why you don't control other party members in Kingdom Hearts for example, Donald and Goofy plus any of the other temporary party members just don't have anything desirable about them to warrant switching to them. Would it be cool to use a shield as a weapon and play as Goofy? Of course, but is it worth development time and a whole feature around it... eh... maybe not.

If they do something where they let you control the characters, I feel like they would have to be solo experiences where Noctis isn't even an option so it makes sense as to why you would control them.
 

Tornak

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#71
Yeah.

I mean, if the DLC episodes are episodes where you only get to control them (their personal story, so no Noctis), I can see it work, although the combat could feel... half-assed, now that we would used to Noctis being a jack of all trades. I'm guessing they'd be small experiences (1-3 hours), so it could be pretty nice, actually. I'm kinda afraid that the characters aren't as fleshed out in the base game and they need this, but I doubt they're doing them because of that.

And precisely, one of the reasons I'm still kinda sad about the whole Cor thing is because of those little scenes they've showed of him in battle. I can see him being a fucking tank even if he's probably got fast moves, and, as stupid as it is, having a guy actually carry his weapon the whole time is something that I'm interested about visually, as Noctis and co can make them appear out of thin air.

I still am sure we'll get to control characters other than Noctis in very specific moments. Chapter 0 HAS to be about Regis, right? He would control very similar to Noct, so there you go.
 
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LeonBlade

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#72
Yeah.

I mean, if the DLC episodes are episodes where you only get to control them (their personal story, so no Noctis), I can see it work, although the combat could feel... half-assed, now that we would used to Noctis being a jack of all trades. I'm guessing they'd be small experiences (1-3 hours), so it could be pretty nice, actually. I'm kinda afraid that the characters aren't as fleshed out in the base game and they need this, but I doubt they're doing them because of that.

And precisely, one of the reasons I'm still kinda sad about the whole Cor thing is because of those little scenes they've showed of him in battle. I can see him being a fucking tank even if he's probably got fast moves, and, as stupid as it is, having a guy actually carry his weapon the whole time is something that I'm interested about visually, as Noctis and co can make them appear out of thin air.

I still am sure we'll get to control characters other than Noctis in very specific moments. Chapter 0 HAS to be about Regis, right? He would control very similar to Noct, so there you go.
I actually assumed that Chapter 0 would be when Noctis gets attacked by that enemy that almost killed him. You would be fighting as a young Noctis who is confident in his training from Gladiolus that he might try to attack it to defend himself only to end up close to death. You have to wonder, how else would Noctis get attacked by this thing? He is just randomly caught in the crossfire? Why would Noctis just be in the middle of a battle like this? We know that the thing that almost killed him was a daemon from Nifelheim. We also know that Regis was aware that his son was in danger and asks where he is in a frantic state from the intro to the Platinum Demo.

So, from all of this information, I'm guessing that we would get to play as young Noctis trying to attack the daemon. They might give us a basic run down of the controls to learn the combat system and then we would lose, some expositional cutscene stuff, and then Chapter 1 can begin.

Just my thoughts!
 
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Tornak

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#73
It also makes sense considering young Noctis has combat animations as seen in the PD. It could be that we control him at first (losing without a chance, as Tabata implied) and then switch to Regis (or not, and it's just a cinematic). Or Chapter 0 could just be young Regis and co doing shit against Niflheim, maybe losing precious territory (it'd be cool if it was Nyx's birthplace, as he was introduced as an immigrant from a former Lucis colony in a magazine, I think). Either way, I expect we meet Noct's mom in the prologue.

I very much doubt they're showing Chapter 0 at Gamescom, especially considering how tight Tabata seems to be in regards to spoilers. There surely has to be enough material that they can use to build a behemoth of a trailer and maybe a demo (if you think about it, most we've seen is Insomnia, Duscae, the desert region and that's basically about it).
 
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LeonBlade

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#74
It also makes sense considering young Noctis has combat animations as seen in the PD. It could be that we control him at first (losing without a chance, as Tabata implied) and then switch to Regis (or not, and it's just a cinematic). Or Chapter 0 could just be young Regis and co doing shit against Niflheim, maybe losing precious territory (it'd be cool if it was Nyx's birthplace, as he was introduced as an immigrant from a former Lucis colony in a magazine, I think). Either way, I expect we meet Noct's mom in the prologue.

I very much doubt they're showing Chapter 0 at Gamescom, especially considering how tight Tabata seems to be in regards to spoilers. There surely has to be enough material that they can use to build a behemoth of a trailer and maybe a demo (if you think about it, most we've seen is Insomnia, Duscae, the desert region and that's basically about it).
I forgot to mention in my post that if we controlled Regis I'd imagine it would be in that same setting as well. It would be pretty cool to control him, but the problem I had with that is that he would have to lose which could only be explained as you mentioned.

Also, I agree about the Chapter 0 stuff, it's going to be a huge spoiler if they showed that...
 
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#75
Cor is the only interesting character to play as in my opinion because he wields a completely different weapon type to anything Noctis has and has his own fighting style. He doesn't even use magic to summon his weapon, he just carries it with him like a bad ass.

By the way, of course I'm not saying anyone should not want to control the characters, if they add in the functionality I will actually be glad they do as it's just more features, but personally I feel like the reason they didn't go through with it wasn't because of some technical limitations, but more along the line of "how are we going to balance this in a way that makes it not pointless".

Nomura originally mentioned things like free-aim with Noctis for Prompto but ultimately that would mean that the gun for Noctis would be kind of useless and it would mean having to switch to Prompto, move him in place, and firing off a shot or two just to do one thing then switching back. I feel like they never even really put much thought or development into it and just figured they were going to do it. There's a reason why you don't control other party members in Kingdom Hearts for example, Donald and Goofy plus any of the other temporary party members just don't have anything desirable about them to warrant switching to them. Would it be cool to use a shield as a weapon and play as Goofy? Of course, but is it worth development time and a whole feature around it... eh... maybe not.

If they do something where they let you control the characters, I feel like they would have to be solo experiences where Noctis isn't even an option so it makes sense as to why you would control them.
This entire post makes a lot of leaps of logic to facilitate a point, so I'm going to go ahead and make a rebuttal.

Balance it to make it less pointless seems like a weird comment to make in a singleplayer JRPG. For one thing, the characters already do damage comparable to Noctis. Gladiolus in particular can dish out punishment even faster than Noct when his AI is actually directing him to, you know, hit stuff. The fact that the characters are useful at all in the game- and they definitely seem to be- is an argument in itself for allowing you to play as them simply to stick with series standards and to offer players a greater variety. It's been mentioned that Noctis can do everything, but that's pretty blatantly untrue and as someone with such a keen eye I feel you already know this, LeonBlade. Not only do the attack animations of every party member vary extremely from Noctis', it's clear they all have more expertise in their particular weapon than he does. I already gave a few examples, but some further ones are how quickly Glad can strike with his greatswords and how excellent Ignis is at assaulting foes with a flurry of knives, where Noctis is extremely slow with greatswords and not great at slinging knives. Add to that the fact that these party members have demonstrated abilities that Noctis doesn't seem to have and the burden of variety and usefulness has honestly already been met even within the confines of the game.

The Donald and Goofy in Kingdom Hearts thing is an extremely false equivalency. You're talking about cartoon characters with extremely limited abilities and zero cool factor, where in later games in KH (Birth by Sleep, Dream Drop Distance) multiple playable characters have been used. Because these are characters we'd want to play as, where people aren't going to make a fuss if a grouchy duck and moron dog are NPCs.

The idea that just because Prompto can use a gun better it would invalidate guns for Noctis is also kinda ludicrous. Prompto would be better at guns, sure, but that doesn't mean Noctis couldn't still use them in a lesser capacity as the jack of all trades that he is. I mean, I don't get why this is confusing, it's been a staple of JRPGs and even Final Fantasy that some characters are better at some things than others. You don't call Tidus useless because Auron hits harder than he does at a baseline, they both bring different things to the table. The idea of switching to Prompto to fire off one shot and then being forced to switch back is also really silly! Both characters have different strengths, but in JRPG fashion the characters would all be reasonably viable so it would be more like "I feel like taking advantage of extra skills in ranged combat" so you switch to Prompto for a while or "I enjoy Noctis' style" so you switch back to Noctis for a while. The way you're painting it is almost deliberately obtuse, and I feel fairly confident no one will use it that way when it's implemented in VII:R.
 
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Lulcielid

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#76
Even under the premise that Gladiolus, Ignis & Prompto could use their respective weapons more effectively (with their own unique abilities) than Noctis, the later is still a far superior character than the previous 3 by being the only one able to use all the weapons+changing weapons mid fight+being able to change his weapon ring (the 4 slot ring) at any time while his teammates are stuck with 1 single weapon. Moreover(if this is any indicatoin), the other 3 don´t 100% exclusive abilities, for instances both Noctis and Gladiolus can perform Tempest.

EDIT: In short, the problem is that Noctis has way more resources than his teammates have.
 
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Sep 26, 2013
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#77
Even under the premise that Gladiolus, Ignis & Prompto could use their respective weapons more effectively (with their own unique abilities) than Noctis, the later is still a far superior character than the previous 3 by being the only one able to use all the weapons+changing weapons mid fight+being able to change his weapon ring (the 4 slot ring) at any time while his teammates are stuck with 1 single weapon. Moreover(if this is any indicatoin), the other 3 don´t 100% exclusive abilities, for instances both Noctis and Gladiolus can perform Tempest.

EDIT: In short, the problem is that Noctis has way more resources than his teammates have.
Noctis has more resources but seems to have less mastery over his individual resources. Even Gladiolus' Tempest is superior to Noctis', with more hits and an effect that draws foes into it. Noctis hasn't demonstrated having the same depth of abilities as his teammates yet, either, as each has a slew of abilities he's never been shown using in any capacity. Also, the teammates can, to an extent, change their weapon. Ignis has been shown wielding a spear and knives in the same encounter.

I just don't think there's much of an argument that can be made for not controlling your team being a good thing, beyond denying that XV is missing anything important.
 
Sep 26, 2013
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#79
That´s only in the middle of a combo with Noctis.
That's incorrect, he wields the spear independently in several bits of footage. In fact, I think LeonBlade himself pointed it out when the Niflheim base footage hit. It was a big deal at the time, I'm shocked you don't know that Ignis wields spears.

EDIT: Heck you can see it in this GIF.
 

LeonBlade

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#80
The idea that just because Prompto can use a gun better it would invalidate guns for Noctis is also kinda ludicrous. Prompto would be better at guns, sure, but that doesn't mean Noctis couldn't still use them in a lesser capacity as the jack of all trades that he is. I mean, I don't get why this is confusing, it's been a staple of JRPGs and even Final Fantasy that some characters are better at some things than others. You don't call Tidus useless because Auron hits harder than he does at a baseline, they both bring different things to the table. The idea of switching to Prompto to fire off one shot and then being forced to switch back is also really silly! Both characters have different strengths, but in JRPG fashion the characters would all be reasonably viable so it would be more like "I feel like taking advantage of extra skills in ranged combat" so you switch to Prompto for a while or "I enjoy Noctis' style" so you switch back to Noctis for a while. The way you're painting it is almost deliberately obtuse, and I feel fairly confident no one will use it that way when it's implemented in VII:R.
Prompto in reality is actually pretty shitty at combat, that's why he jumps around and rolls on the ground, it's because he's trying to look cool over actually being effective. Regardless, Prompto is better at guns as he clearly has a larger range of weapons and abilities surrounding them. As for your Tidus comparison, that's a poor comparison as Tidus could easily hit just as much as Auron once you give him more Strength. For example, Wakka is great at flying enemies, but that's just because he has a long-range weapon with high accuracy, not because he's just better at it somehow. The only thing they bring that's different is their Overdrives, otherwise you can max out every character with everything on the sphere grid and everyone will hit exactly the same max damage... yes that includes Yuna hitting enemies with her stick.

That's incorrect, he wields the spear independently in several bits of footage. In fact, I think LeonBlade himself pointed it out when the Niflheim base footage hit. It was a big deal at the time, I'm shocked you don't know that Ignis wields spears.

EDIT: Heck you can see it in this GIF.
I love that GIF so much, so much cool shit happening all at once.
 
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