Switching Party Members confirmed! (EDIT: No longer confirmed. Quite anticonfirmed.)

Or Membro's as i call them :lol: Here's a link: http://squareportal.net/2014/09/30/y...al-fantasy-xv/ . Here's tha jist:
"Sony has released the latest trailers from Tokyo Game Show 2014 on the Japanese PlayStation Store. Alongside many other titles, Final Fantasy XV makes an appearance as “TGS2014 Special Trailer”. The video itself is the same but the description confirms something we have been speculating for a long time: You can actually switch party members. Here is our translation of the description:

Taking advantage of the next generation console’s specifications, characters can move around the entire screen and the traditional party battle of Final Fantasy games is evolved so you can enjoy battle even more strategically by switching party members.

Is this true?

If so, HYPE.

I'm looking forward to pulling off some of those fire combos with Ignis. I've even named my Ifrit on FFX HD after him haha.

Hopefully we see this at the extended talk show!

While this is good news and suggests you will be able to switch party members, bear in mind we don't know who wrote this description. Was it an official Square Enix rep who confirmed the facts with Tabata? Was it a Sony person making an educated guess about what they saw?

Odds are it's an official description provided by SE, in which case rejoice rejoice for we have arrived at the land of milk and honey. Just take that honey with a pinch of salt for now ;)

I REALLY hope it's legit, that you can switch party members who you control during battle, not just switching them in and out of your party. I can't rest until it's been clarified with those specific words.

If it's true we won't have long to wait, I'm sure they'd show it at the extended demonstration on the 2nd October.

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Originally Posted by FFFFsephychibi

I REALLY hope it's legit, that you can switch party members who you control during battle, not just switching them in and out of your party. I can't rest until it's been clarified with those specific words.

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Oh, I didn't think about it like that. Damn haha. Maaaaaybe I got a little ahead of myself :lol:

I hope somebody will finally make a clear statement about that matter during the extended demo on Thursday. Or even better, show some demo of playing as the other characters; this would pretty much settle it.
I still don't understand why Tabata would tell us that you can only control Noctis in this 4Gamer interview, and now this description on the PS Store says something completely different. Did Tabata mean that only the demo is restricted to Noctis being playable? Did he only intend to say that you can only control one character at the same time?
The description given in the store sounds very promising and I really, really hope it's true, but I'm not convinced as long as there's no official and clear confirmation directly from SE.

This would be so great but I don't know if that really is true as only Noctis seems to warp around so that command would be not available during that time.

Noctis is the only one that can warp, that command just wouldn't be available to anybody else.

Assuming it's true that's GREAT. That means it's still some sort of KH/FFXII mishmash.

Great news if true. That would take care of probably my biggest concern. I'm surprised this is even an issue in a modern day Final Fantasy game.

My theory is that this means FFXII styled on-the-fly switching of party members who do their own thing based on your general instruction, minus the ability to switch between which character you are actually controlling the movement of.

But if it's a full on XII-styled switching of controlled character as well, all the better.

Well, that's that. Tabata confirmed that you cannot switch characters during the talk show.

Well, that was a fun 2 days of speculation...

So, only Noctis is really playable? If so, that really sucks. =/

Yeah, apparently the description in the PS Store was a misunderstanding.
Tabata said that after the last E3 trailer they decided that it would be "too complicated" to have switchable characters (whatever he meant by that). Says the man who gave us 14 playable characters in Type-0. :p

Well that's kind of disappointing, but I can deal with it. No Ignis fire combo for me :(

Oh well.

Also, I'm with Taiga. Doesn't really make much sense when we get so many playable characters in Type-0.

Meh I guess I'm okay with it when I think about there being no character switching during combat. Noctis seems interesting enough to be entertaining for a whole game.

Honestly all I really wanted was 3rd person shooting mode with Prompto T_T

Oh well.

Hopefully you can at least direct the other party members with commands from Noctis rather than 100% relying on AI or pre-set gambits.

My main concern is that, during the flow of battle, what if you want to change your party's tactics? If you have to rely on pre-set gambits that can't be swapped out mid-battle, that's a problem. If you rely on the AI to adapt on it's own (like in FFXIII) that's a different problem: I want to figure things out for myself, thanks.

I will gladly take pre-set gambits that can be swapped at anytime over the XIII A.I. so I am really hoping it's that.

Yeah, I was disappointed that they never took FFXII's gambit system to the next level (like Dragon Age does) so hopefully that's what we get!

I must be the only person who hated the Gambit system. I mean, I saw the benefit of not having to do all the functions myself, but the system itself was full of gunk. I preferred the AI in XIII where all I had to do was say "HEAL, HEAL. GO HEAL." and they knew what to do. None of this "But, Daniel, his HP isn't below 40%. And which heal, Daniel? WHICH HEAL?" :stare: Let alone having to do all that setup for seven damned characters.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

I must be the only person who hated the Gambit system. I mean, I saw the benefit of not having to do all the functions myself, but the system itself was full of gunk. I preferred the AI in XIII where all I had to do was say "HEAL, HEAL. GO HEAL." and they knew what to do. None of this "But, Daniel, his HP isn't below 40%. And which heal, Daniel? WHICH HEAL?" :stare: Let alone having to do all that setup for seven damned characters.

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I didn't like the Gambit at all.

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Originally Posted by Sephiroth

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

I must be the only person who hated the Gambit system. I mean, I saw the benefit of not having to do all the functions myself, but the system itself was full of gunk. I preferred the AI in XIII where all I had to do was say "HEAL, HEAL. GO HEAL." and they knew what to do. None of this "But, Daniel, his HP isn't below 40%. And which heal, Daniel? WHICH HEAL?" :stare: Let alone having to do all that setup for seven damned characters.

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I didn't like the Gambit at all.

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I'm with you guys.

If only you could do that with your main character too and therefore not need to do anything in battle at all. Oh wait, FFXIII did that and it was called 'Auto-Battle'...

You guys are lazy.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

I must be the only person who hated the Gambit system. I mean, I saw the benefit of not having to do all the functions myself, but the system itself was full of gunk. I preferred the AI in XIII where all I had to do was say "HEAL, HEAL. GO HEAL." and they knew what to do. None of this "But, Daniel, his HP isn't below 40%. And which heal, Daniel? WHICH HEAL?" :stare: Let alone having to do all that setup for seven damned characters.

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See I'm the opposite, I prefer having lots of control over "Hey I need a group heal quickly Vanille! No... group heal none of this using Cure 1 five times, I mean everyone needs to be healed cause I don't want to waste a Phoenix down on this fight. GODDAMMIT VANILLE USE A smurfING GROUP HEAL YOU STUPID BITCH!!! smurf IT!!! I'll just do a party wipe since death is a slap on the wrist anyway... :mad:

At least if the A.I. smurfs up in XII I can only blame myself, half the actual challenge of XIII was getting around the A.I. issues. Especially since the enemy A.I. was smart enough to know how to trap the Synergist A.I. in an endless loop, making them useless in some fights.

If you're going to do A.I. party members, I prefer having some level of control besides "Heal anyway you feel like it regardless if it's the least optimal way".

Ah, your post made me realize that my previous post is misleading, so I'd like to add something, just for the record. I agree with the "I didn't like the Gambit system" part, but I'm not exactly a fan of AI systems as used in XIII (as mentioned by Loony BoB) either. I didn't mind it in XIII (definitely prefer it over the Gambit system, which was just annoying in my opinion), but most of all I prefer controlling all party members myself during battle instead of giving them preset orders via strategy menu.

No worries, I enjoyed the Gambit System but I understand why others didn't and I also prefer having classic full party controls but if I have to deal with A.I. I much prefer having control over it because what the programmers think I want is different from the actual reality of what I need. I felt XIII certainly proved my point of an A.I. that is smart enough not to be completely useless but still dumb enough to be more trouble than it's worth.

Yeah, I get your point. :)
Every system has its pros and cons, and I personally enjoy the variety in systems of Final Fantasy games. I might not like all of them, but it would be pretty boring if every battle system was the same for each game. Still sad about Noctis being the only playable character though. But I'll live. ;)

Mmm, algorithms...

Imagine how fun it would be to have fluid programming control over AI rather than the standard drop down menu for a single 'condition', 'target', and 'action'. I doubt XV would have that kind of flexibility but if it did it would be truly impressive. You could have nested conditions based on various scenarios or types of monsters, and different actions taken based on the initial results. Also an unlimited number of gambits would be nice instead of the typical dozen or so.

For example, say your attacker is getting beat down. You have a gambit to heal if their HP gets below 50%. But say, this happens like 5 times during a span of 2 minutes. Instead of the back and forth of hurt cure hurt cure, maybe you set a gambit that says 'If [Healing Gambit] is triggered 5 times, Cast Protect on X'. Or, at the very least, you can have a Protect gambit ready to manually swap on if you see this happening in battle.

This is what the additional computing power of the newer machines should be used for rather than improved visuals.

Sigh, so it's only Noctis. Well, I hope at the very least there's some sort of gambit system or you have some level of control over your other characters, but I doubt it.

But when the game was first announced it was announced as having an "evolved form" of the Kingdom Hearts battle system, which was limited to control over only the main character, so it's not really that earth shattering a revelation. Still, those Prompto shooting scenes looked pretty awesome. ;___;

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

Imagine how fun it would be to have fluid programming control over AI rather than the standard drop down menu for a single 'condition', 'target', and 'action'. I doubt XV would have that kind of flexibility but if it did it would be truly impressive. You could have nested conditions based on various scenarios or types of monsters, and different actions taken based on the initial results. Also an unlimited number of gambits would be nice instead of the typical dozen or so.

For example, say your attacker is getting beat down. You have a gambit to heal if their HP gets below 50%. But say, this happens like 5 times during a span of 2 minutes. Instead of the back and forth of hurt cure hurt cure, maybe you set a gambit that says 'If [Healing Gambit] is triggered 5 times, Cast Protect on X'. Or, at the very least, you can have a Protect gambit ready to manually swap on if you see this happening in battle.

This is what the additional computing power of the newer machines should be used for rather than improved visuals.

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Actually the Gambits could have been far more advanced if the XII team wanted them to be but Ito realized they made the game way too perfect to automate and wanted the players to have to manage some work. In the scenario you gave, the XII system would expect you the player to realize the problem and use Protect.

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Originally Posted by DMKA

Sigh, so it's only Noctis. Well, I hope at the very least there's some sort of gambit system or you have some level of control over your other characters, but I doubt it.

But when the game was first announced it was announced as having an "evolved form" of the Kingdom Hearts battle system, which was limited to control over only the main character, so it's not really that earth shattering a revelation. Still, those Prompto shooting scenes looked pretty awesome. ;___;

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I must be the only person happy not to have to deal with a Mass Effect combat clone element creeping into the game.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

Imagine how fun it would be to have fluid programming control over AI rather than the standard drop down menu for a single 'condition', 'target', and 'action'. I doubt XV would have that kind of flexibility but if it did it would be truly impressive. You could have nested conditions based on various scenarios or types of monsters, and different actions taken based on the initial results. Also an unlimited number of gambits would be nice instead of the typical dozen or so.

For example, say your attacker is getting beat down. You have a gambit to heal if their HP gets below 50%. But say, this happens like 5 times during a span of 2 minutes. Instead of the back and forth of hurt cure hurt cure, maybe you set a gambit that says 'If [Healing Gambit] is triggered 5 times, Cast Protect on X'. Or, at the very least, you can have a Protect gambit ready to manually swap on if you see this happening in battle.

This is what the additional computing power of the newer machines should be used for rather than improved visuals.

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Actually the Gambits could have been far more advanced if the XII team wanted them to be but Ito realized they made the game way too perfect to automate and wanted the players to have to manage some work. In the scenario you gave, the XII system would expect you the player to realize the problem and use Protect.

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Oh yeah, that's fine too, but of course it requires you to have some direct control of what your teammates are doing outside gambits/AI. So far it doesn't sound like XV will give us that.

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Originally Posted by Taiga

Yeah, apparently the description in the PS Store was a misunderstanding.
Tabata said that after the last E3 trailer they decided that it would be "too complicated" to have switchable characters (whatever he meant by that). Says the man who gave us 14 playable characters in Type-0. :p

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That's unfortunate. I think I recall a while ago in one of the earlier trailers when it was still Versus that the player was playing from the perspective of the dude with the gun.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

Imagine how fun it would be to have fluid programming control over AI rather than the standard drop down menu for a single 'condition', 'target', and 'action'. I doubt XV would have that kind of flexibility but if it did it would be truly impressive. You could have nested conditions based on various scenarios or types of monsters, and different actions taken based on the initial results. Also an unlimited number of gambits would be nice instead of the typical dozen or so.

For example, say your attacker is getting beat down. You have a gambit to heal if their HP gets below 50%. But say, this happens like 5 times during a span of 2 minutes. Instead of the back and forth of hurt cure hurt cure, maybe you set a gambit that says 'If [Healing Gambit] is triggered 5 times, Cast Protect on X'. Or, at the very least, you can have a Protect gambit ready to manually swap on if you see this happening in battle.

This is what the additional computing power of the newer machines should be used for rather than improved visuals.

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I would love a system like that. A system of "write your own gambit" would be heavenly.

If there's no gambit system and no switching characters, I'm gonna be sad. More lame, static combat. Perhaps the MMOs have spoiled me, but I like dynamic on-the-fly combat that requires mid-fight changes. I like adds and near wipes and dealing with all the sleeping and crowd control and all that. FFXIII had none of that, and I really really hope FFXV goes a different route.

I want to be mad at Tabata, because his excuse sounds like a pile of horsetrout, but I'm just glad the dude came along and took over from Nomura. We'd have never gotten the game at all without him, and even if it sucks in the end, at least then we can move past it and start hyping FFXVI (since VI is my favorite FF, I'm hoping FFXVI brings the magic back to franchise).

I don't put too much fault on Tabata with this one. Pretty much all the stuff we saw with Nomura was an idealized version of the game that looked awesome, but I highly doubted was really worked into the game. I honestly feel like most of XV never left the conceptual stage while Nomura was in charge of it. I imagine Tabata was handed the reigns of the project and probably told "Make this come out quickly."

Maybe Tabata could have had us switching party members (who seem to have pretty vastly different play styles). Tabata doesn't have 8 more years to try to match Nomura's idealized version of the game to switch from action to 3rd person shooter on the fly while balancing it all out and everything. I've always been more concerned about them nailing the characters and world down rather than have the multiple parties. I suppose we'll see how it all turns out soon!