LINEAR MAPS :@

[The Last Oath]

Apparently the maps in FFXIII are gonna be linear.

http://img4.sankakustatic.com/wp-con...-linearity.jpg

Like that. And apparently theres no more towns, all the shopping is done at save points. And to add to that, I heard its auto-heal after battles.

This is only what i've heard from a FF buddy of mine, but if this is true then I feel that the traditional, get stuck-challenge is gone from the game. No more running around and looking for stuff?

[Skyblade]

I too heard of both the auto-heal and the linearity, and I don't mind it.

Apparently Pulse is much more open than Cocoon, but it takes a while to get to it. But there have been plenty of linear FFs, and some of them were great.

I'm not sure about the "no more towns" thing, though. Perhaps shopping is done at save points, but there are definitely some towns in the game. We saw some in the trailers.

[Raistlin]

No more towns? I hope that one's not true.

[demondude]

It is true, no more towns.

[Rantz]

I don't like the sound of any of this, but maybe this game can make it work. I hope it can!

[Wolf Kanno]

Not thrilled with the notion though I could have sworn the last series of news spiels on the game said their will be shops in towns as well as the ones accessable from save points, yet if all we're going after is generic accessories with minor stats boosts and refinement gear for our weapons that may only add small boosts to them a la FFVIII and X, then I feel shops might as well be dead like they are in VIII and X.

I'm not completely surprised by the linearity of the dungeon maps as seen in the demo and this may help explain the few comments heard from early reviews. At this point, it will be up to the plot to determine whether the linearity of the game is good or bad.

As for healing after battle, that was mentioned awhile back but the director swore that the normal battles would have bigger difficulty spikes to compensate for this feature. How this will work out will depend on how broken the leveling/battle system is.

[Skyblade]

The after battle healing was an inspired decision, I think. In other FFs, they had to balance battle difficulty based on the length of dungeons/treks. If you made the encounters too hard, people would be worn down by the end and would simply fall due to being overwhelmed, which is difficult to recover from if they already saved halfway along their journey. The usual response for this is to make the monsters pathetic. A lot of FFs had their share of random encounters that one did not want to fight due to simplicity and tediousness.

By ensuring that you always are at tippy top health once you are done with every battle, they can make the individual fights harder. It doesn't matter if you survive with 1 HP, because the next encounter you face won't be able to just knock that last point off to kill you. There is no chance of simply being attacked by so many creatures that you can't endure it. They can thus make the individual non-boss encounters more difficult and more interesting.

It might not work out, but I think it is a great idea, and I can't wait to see it in action.

[Psychotic]

When I think of linear dungeons I think of Final Fantasy X (eg Mi'hen Highroad and Macalania Woods) and to be honest, I preferred them to the soulless mazes of the very non-linear FFXII. Still, variation and exploration are both good things, and I'll be miffed if there are no hidden goodies to root out. I don't think we can really judge the game based on a couple of strat guide scans though. A lot of people are saying that there is a huge wide open area similar in size to the Calm Lands of FFX in the game, and I am really looking forward to exploring that.

I've also heard there are no towns, and I'm really disappointed in that, as I love seeing a variety of towns and settlements, just milling about and chatting it up with NPCs.

Auto-healing after battles is a fantastic feature and I'm glad they put it in. Saves me the bother of going to the menu and selecting "use potion" until my potions run out, then "use cure" until my MP runs out. Yawn. The battles are apparently very tough, too, and to me this sounds like an improvement. I prefer the idea of the challenge coming from winning battles rather than resource management.

[The Last Oath]

Well everytime theres been a new Final Fantasy its copped critsicm like this but they always are pleasing in the end. Im just gonna wait n see.

[Rantz]

When I think of linear dungeons I think of Final Fantasy X (eg Mi'hen Highroad and Macalania Woods) and to be honest, I preferred them to the soulless mazes of the very non-linear FFXII.

Yeah, I agree with this! While I don't particularly like linearity, dungeons that twist and wind for no real reason other than to make it longer/more complex are the worst. I prefer the classical FF setup to both of those, i.e. a world map that grows more open the further you get in the game, and dungeons that aren't mazes but have enough puzzles and divergent paths to still be interesting.

[crazybayman]

When I think of linear dungeons I think of Final Fantasy X (eg Mi'hen Highroad and Macalania Woods) and to be honest, I preferred them to the soulless mazes of the very non-linear FFXII. Still, variation and exploration are both good things, and I'll be miffed if there are no hidden goodies to root out.

Auto-healing after battles is a fantastic feature and I'm glad they put it in. Saves me the bother of going to the menu and selecting "use potion" until my potions run out, then "use cure" until my MP runs out. Yawn. The battles are apparently very tough, too, and to me this sounds like an improvement. I prefer the idea of the challenge coming from winning battles rather than resource management.

DUDE YOU SHOULD WORK FOR SQUARE

[Dreddz]

What exactly is the problem? Isn't this what you all wanted after laying into FFXII?

[Skyblade]

What exactly is the problem? Isn't this what you all wanted after laying into FFXII?

Why don't you look over the thread again and check how many of us actually have a problem with these announcements?

Most of us are happy to get away from the annoyingly pointless mazes of XII and are not unhappy with the after-battle healing, as it shows some interesting new info about the battles.

The only thing that people are unhappy about is the lack of towns, and that is mostly misinformation. We already know there are towns in the games, because we have seen them in the trailers. What is changing is that shops have been added to the save points and might have been removed from the towns.

[Moon Rabbits]

I loved the dungeons in FFXII Apparently I am the only one.

Auto-heal is the best decision game-play wise, imo imo.

[the AJman]

You're not the only one Moon Rabbits, I loved the dungeons from FFXII. I absolutely do not what to see the dungeon and world layout from FFX return. It's a shame that they are going more for that layout far a good part of the game. I'd much prefer massive world with a lot of different places to go, I also like dungeons that I have to navigate and find my way through. I doesn't have to be a ridiculously complicated maze, but some form of finding the way would be nice. I'm still going to remain hopeful for XIII though.

As for auto-heal, I don't have much of an opinion on that, I'll be happy with or without it.