Is ATB Dead?

[Depression Moon]

To be fair, every game these days uses some kind of ATB. If you think about it, an FPS has a certain action time for each thing you do, as does a fighter game such as Street Fighter - and, much like most FF's, in fighter games some fighters are faster to do certain actions than others. I'm sure that with that in mind, whatever we get in the future, it will have some kind of ATB involved. Big spells will always take longer, each character will always have a speed stat, etc.

It sounds like you're saying that ATB was invented before ATB was invented.

[Sword]

You don't necessarily have to have units just standing around to to ATB or turn based. In FF12 and FF13 positioning was largely irrelevant for most fights (and complete BS for the ones it was, as you don't have any decent way of controlling it for the party) so I don't see why you can't make something turn based where the party and enemy units are moving around dynamically the whole time. It would be complete window dressing, but to be honest most of the in battle character movement is already superfluous to combat mechanics.

Positioning was irrelevant in FF12 & 13? How? I'd say the opposite is true since if all your characters are bunched together then an area affect attack will affect them all, but if they are spread out then it may only hit one or two. In those games I often found myself trying to move my characters into certain positions for strategic advantages.

[Flying Arrow]

To be fair, every game these days uses some kind of ATB. If you think about it, an FPS has a certain action time for each thing you do, as does a fighter game such as Street Fighter - and, much like most FF's, in fighter games some fighters are faster to do certain actions than others. I'm sure that with that in mind, whatever we get in the future, it will have some kind of ATB involved. Big spells will always take longer, each character will always have a speed stat, etc.

Eh, but these are twitch games. I see the time factor as being completely different in a real-time action game than a time factor in what is essentially a menu game with pretty graphics.

[Loony BoB]

That's true. But it would be kind of neat to see a mixture of the two. Say, have twitch-related attacks be allowed, but for massive damage over long times, switch to a menu based system. You could set it up per character, so that one character does constant attacks using, for example, fists and whatnot, while another has a completely different system for themselves, requiring a menu choice system with long build-up. When you've selected your choice, flick back to the twitchy character and start attacking, fighter-style, with various combos included. Suddenly, over your head a big attack comes in from your slower but more powerful member. Jump back to them, set up the next attack, jump back, more fast punches. etc. etc. And when you're not controlling a character you've selected for 'twitch system' they do a simple auto-attack, thus allowing for real-time (ie, not 'Wait') ATB of some sort.

[Del Murder]

I really hate AI controlled characters. Every time it's the default in DQ games I always disable it. I hate that it's necessary in FFXII and FFXIII. Stop trying to be a single player MMO!

I don't think SE would need to change the historic ATB system when remaking these games. It really was a great system. Just make it a bit faster and you're good. I don't think the gaming community has gotten to the point that they won't accept a simple ATB system in an RPG. Bring it back! FFX-2 was such a great version of it. I wish that was in FFXIII.

[Jiro]

Yeah, I really enjoyed the X-2 battle system. Mind you, once I got good at Gambits, that was fun too. So XII had some good ideas, just not perfect implementation.

[Elpizo]

In my personal opinion, it has always seemed to me that the problem people had with ATB wasn't so much ATB itself, but that often, random encounters came with ATB. And people these days seem to see random encounters as the worst crime that a human being can ever comit. Though that's of course not true. Just look at Chrono Trigger.

I always wondered why none of the 'modern' FF games did that when trying to do away with random encounters. In Chrono Trigger, you see an enemy, you run up to it, your characters spread out and ATB starts. No screen transition at all. Why hasn't a single FF done this yet? It's probably the best system that does away with RE and keeps ATB I've seen so far. And I'm sure that if it was done like this, people and reviewers wouldn't make that much of a deal of ATB either, or see it as outdated.

[Loony BoB]

Random encounters never bothered me that much so long as there was some kind of 'enemy away' and 'enemy lure' available. What I really didn't like was having to constantly leave an area so a specific enemy would respawn when I was leveling in "visible enemy" maps.

[VeloZer0]

One major problem with that is you have to design every field area to accommodate a fight sequence. In CT once you entered battle it just kind of treated the entire screen as a flat mat that you were fighting on. In 3D I don't think it would work quite as well.

Part of the problem is lack of direction on random encounter design. In the early days the random encounters were a truly difficult part of the game, grinding your party down as they moved through the dungeon. Now with everything they have added they just seem there to pad out the game's length. No wonder people get upset having to fight them repeatedly.If you want to make ATB more appealing you have to make the random battles contribute something to the game, instead of drawing it out.

[Roogle]

Final Fantasy X-2 did a great job of bringing an Active Time Battle system to a newer console. Unfortunately, its quirky story turned off many potential fans to the game.

[felfenix]

I was never a fan of ATB anyway, and thought it was overused. I preferred the full turn-based systems of 1, 2, 3, and 10. If not turn-based, then preferably something completely not turn-based, like Kingdom Hearts. 13's battle system doesn't seem all that different from ATB to me.

Chrono Trigger pulled off ATB well, but I don't think any of the FFs did.

[Mirage]

I find stricktly turn based system incredibly boring. And yes, FF13 did indeed have a sort of ATB, too bad the AI characters ruined it.

[Bolivar]

Damn, you guys are some serious haters.

[Jiro]

I don't see why we can't move to real time battles really. Games like the Tales series have been doing it for years with relative success.

[VeloZer0]

Why do we have to move an existing quasi turn based franchise to real time? Why can't they just create a new IP of the same high quality, start a new franchise and have both?