Final Fantasy XV (was Versus XIII)

[ultima espio]

Noctis' Behemoth Jacket DLC is free from today, apparently:

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I like the look of it for sure. I know what I'll be doing when I get home.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Jacketing it?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Jacketing it?

X

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Spoiler

As the Oracle, she's supposed to be one of the other most important components in the prophesy in addition to her healing the sickness that was also a component of Ardyn becoming unworthy in his attempt to purge it by taking it into himself, so I feel like there a lot more there than we see.

X

X hath read my mind.

 

[ForceStealer]

Finally sat down to play Episode Gladio. Pretty good, enjoyed getting back into the swing of the combat (if slightly different), and hangin out with Cor again was fun. As usual I wish he talked more, haha. But the hints at backstory were cool.

Spoiler

I especially liked that sword he's using is the one from the last gate. That was a cool touch.

It does still beg the question what he was up to the rest of the time, but a nice bit of lore all the same.

Spoiler

Enjoyed hearing Gilgamesh's theme of course, and even though he didn't look like traditional Gilgamesh, I actually thought he looked very cool.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

So, this happened, and I just had to mess about.

Also, the new hunt is pretty fun times for just casual critter slayin' which is nice, & fancy jacket is fancy.




X

 

[Tetsujin]

Right, I'm finally gonna update from version 1.04.

Goodbye, Choco Mog Festival

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Posting my excitement here too because reasons:

I just found out almost 2 hours ago that EXP Conventions is having an event in St. Augustine, Florida at the end of October... and they got ALL FOUR chocobro voice actors to attend! That's Ray Chase, Robbie Daymond, Adam Croasdell, and Chris Parson ALL under one roof!

I'm totally getting a poster blown up like I did for Kari Wahlgren and getting them all to autograph it. Bonus points if I can get Adam to write 'I'VE COME UP WITH A NEW RECIPE' in huge letters across it.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Posting my excitement here too because reasons:

I just found out almost 2 hours ago that EXP Conventions is having an event in St. Augustine, Florida at the end of October... and they got ALL FOUR chocobro voice actors to attend! That's Ray Chase, Robbie Daymond, Adam Croasdell, and Chris Parson ALL under one roof!

I'm totally getting a poster blown up like I did for Kari Wahlgren and getting them all to autograph it. Bonus points if I can get Adam to write 'I'VE COME UP WITH A NEW RECIPE' in huge letters across it.

OH MAH GADZ, THAT'S SO EXCITING!!! THIS IS ALSO A GREAT PLAN!!! I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK AND THINGS AND STUFF AND AOUTHWEGJKBWEKSFDLW!!!!!1111~





X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I need to go to this.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Then let's go!!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well, it will be a lot to arrange, but it may be possible. I'm damn sure going to try.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Doooooo eeeeeeeeet. If I can't find someone to chill with me for the weekend I'm at least going up there for the day.

 

[Shademp]

Can't wait to play the "LithiuMexican" limited time crossover event DLC!

 

[lithiumkatana17]

I was trying to talk Tenny into coming down for impromptu trip to Florida that weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

At Momocom 2017 there was a FFXV panel where a developer gave a speech, here is transcript by /u/BligndingAwesomeness on /r/FFXV.

1. Takatsugu Nakazawa, the RPG Design Lead, has worked as a Battle Planner, Battle Director, and Lead Game Designer since Final Fantasy VII.
2. Features that were reworked: Level Design, Battle System, and Leveling Balance.
3. Features that were kept from previous Final Fantasies: System Features, Ability System, and Game Over Prevention.
4. The developers want to allow different playstyles but present the world in the same way to all players.
5. Game Overs are purposefully prevented because the developers don't want to keep players from progressing the game. If you are not ready for an enemy or quest, things like consumables allow players to escape or power through.
6. Business Division 2 is always working on something new.

If Nakazawa was to Direct a Future Final Fantasy Game

1. Features to keep: System Features, Action Battle System, and Open World.
2. Features to rework: Story Placement, Ability and Leveling System, and Leveling Balance.
3. Main Quests shouldn't be so obvious, and the lines between Main Quests and Side Quests should be blurred.
4. Each party member should level differently based on their background, physical/mental/magical attributes, personality, et cetera.
5. Quests and different regions of the world should be drastically different from each other in terms of recommended Level, enemies, and rewards.

Takatsugu Nazawa contributions to the FF franchise:

Final Fantasy VII:Battle Planner
Final Fantasy VIII:Battle Planner
Final Fantasy X:Battle Planner
Final Fantasy X-2:Battle Director
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings:Special Thanks
Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-:Battle Director
Final Fantasy XIII:Battle Planning Support
Final Fantasy Type-0:Lead Game Designer
Final Fantasy XIII-2:Special Thanks
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD:Lead Game Designer
Final Fantasy XV:System Designer & Battle Director

BlindingAwesomeness (who is really good people, by the way; I've had a few conversations with BA) has now posted the complete transcript of this presentation. It's thoroughly interesting.

 

[hian]

I didn't say the developers were capable of designing an infrastructure that would make all that work in real life.

Neither am I, but clearly there's a wide spectrum here of "that would clearly not work what so ever", and "That would definitely work", and I'm pointing out that for a game that sold itself as being a "fantasy based one reality" where vast amount of resources was spent on making the world look realistic, this is IMO a pretty big short-comming.

Just a) that the "starve them out" plan clearly wouldn't work since it hasn't worked in over 30 years (in fact, life in Insomnia is described as cushy);

That's not an argument - that's merely reiterating what I say is a problem as if its not.

The very fact that Isnomnia hasn't been starved out in that period of 30 years stretches incredulity. However, it's even worse when you consider the fact that Insomnia as we see it, regardless of how it was even a year ago, would not last a single year given what it now looks like - which is why the empire bothering to go through their elaborate invision plan makes no sense.

b) that there's something within the fiction to address the resource issue. For me, that's enough.

Except there isn't. There is no explanation for this. The fact that the game pretends the city magically somehow made due over this 30 year period is not an address of the issue - it's glossing over it as if it isn't there. That's a huge distinction.

I'm not expecting a gaggle of game developers to have figured out a solution to starvation. =P

You make this sound hard. All they'd have to do is design Insomnia as having large farm lands inside the wall.
This does not require genious, nor a sulotion to world starvation or whatever. It just requires designers asking themselves the most basic of city design questions - namely "what does this city need to be self-sufficient?".
In fact these kinda questions are rutinely characterized as Design 101, which is why, as a designer myself, I'm completely baffled by their seeming lack of ability or interest to do so.

I wouldn't expect this from the average FF fantasy romp as they're obviously more often than not meant to mirror fairy tales and old legends rather than sophisticated science fiction or such, but again, in the context of a game that tried to sell itself as a "fantasy based on reality", where a plethora of designers spent ages designing city scapes and polish rocks, this is very disappointing, and is critiqueworthy in my opinion.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Just a) that the "starve them out" plan clearly wouldn't work since it hasn't worked in over 30 years (in fact, life in Insomnia is described as cushy);

That's not an argument ...

It is if you're insisting that the possibility for such a plan must be present within the setting when it clearly isn't.

The audience is most definitely not meant to be thinking about such a thing. If you're asking "Why doesn't the empire just wait for them to starve?" you've misunderstood something. If anything, Insomnia has flourished during its isolation.

The very fact that Isnomnia hasn't been starved out in that period of 30 years stretches incredulity. However, it's even worse when you consider the fact that Insomnia as we see it, regardless of how it was even a year ago, would not last a single year given what it now looks like - which is why the empire bothering to go through their elaborate invision plan makes no sense.

Again, there's clearly no possibility for this to even be a strategy. There's no rationing of resources or concerns about them.

They have fast food joints in Insomnia for God's sake ...

b) that there's something within the fiction to address the resource issue. For me, that's enough.

Except there isn't. There is no explanation for this.

Nothing spoken, no, but you can take one look at designs of the city and see that every nook and cranny wasn't dedicated to buildings. There's still a lot of undeveloped land, and we can't even make out what all of it is, especially on the side opposite the viewing perspective.

I'm not expecting a gaggle of game developers to have figured out a solution to starvation. =P

You make this sound hard. All they'd have to do is design Insomnia as having large farm lands inside the wall.

Or we, knowing a) that farmland is probably needed, and b) that there's extensive undeveloped land inside the city walls -- much of which we never get a good look at -- could easily conclude that the required farmland must be present. =P

Really, why come to a conclusion that you insist defies logic when it's just as easy to do the opposite? You don't even have to utilize any selective observation to get there.

We don't see any bathrooms in the game that I can recall, but I feel like it's reasonable to conclude that they exist.

 

[hian]

It is if you're insisting that the possibility for such a plan must be present within the setting when it clearly isn't.

I disagree. A plot that wants to be taken seriously should provide understandable rationals for why people do the things they do. If the easier, more practical and more resource friendly thing is to simply starve Insomnia, that's what we should expect.

We apply this standard all the time to fiction. Why is FFXV excempt?

The audience is most definitely not meant to be thinking about such a thing. If you're asking "Why doesn't the empire just wait for them to starve?" you've misunderstood something.

There are plenty of things audiences are not supposed to think about - that does not mean that a story isn't critiqueworthy because the author didn't want us to think about something.
Maybe that something is something the author should have thought about, and so people wouldn't have to think about it regardless of whether or not we're supposed to think about it.

Going with your later toilet example - In many RPGs, it's not just a matter of toilets not being seen - many houses will not have toilets or bathrooms. We're not supposed to think about that. However, most of those RPG are not telling us they aimed for realism.
FFXV did. You ask me to expect realism, you don't get dimiss criticism for when your game magically ceases to be realistic - especially considering aspects that are directly relevant to the plot - such as elements that throw into the basic rational behind plot changing decissions.

If anything, Insomnia has flourished during its isolation.

Which again, makes no sense and is the very thing I'm critiquing.

Again, there's clearly no possibility for this to even be a strategy. There's no rationing of resources or concerns about them.

They have fast food joints in Insomnia for God's sake ...

And that's the plot hole here. You repeating it doesn't explain it, why are you acting as if it does. It's the very thing I'm saying is ridiclous.
Insomnia should not have operating fast food chains at this point.
In fact, the citizens should be running around in panick by now, searching for food.

Nothing spoken, no, but you can take one look at designs of the city and see that every nook and cranny wasn't dedicated to buildings.

Which doesn't matter. Did you just not see what I just wrote? To feed a place that size for even a short period of time you'd need farmlands the size of the site itself, if not twice over.

Here is Insomnia :

Spoiler

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9a/da/4d/9ada4d238a75296feb4f8aaf198381f6.jpg

There is not enough land within the city walls to grow enough food for a city that size. Unless half of the city is actually composed of fetching green houses Yes, I am making that claim. Making the claim that you could is like looking at Tokyo on google maps and making the statement that going by the green areas in Tokyo, Tokyo could be self-sufficient. It absolutely could not.
Even if the entire Kanto rice produce was going to Tokyo, if you cut that off, Tokyo would not last a year.

There's still a lot of undeveloped land, and we can't even make out what all of it is, especially on the side opposite the viewing perspective.

Even if I accepted that (which I don't, I think we ca see those green areas are forests/parks, not farm lands) We can clearly see there is not enough land within Insomnia. If you think otherwise, I'd have to border on being rude (sorry in advance) and say you have a very unrealistic picture of how much produce is necessary to feed a city that size.

Or we, knowing a) that farmland is probably needed, and b) that there's extensive undeveloped land inside the city walls -- much of which we never get a good look at -- could easily conclude that the required farmland must be present. =P

No. Just No.

Really, why come to a conclusion that you insist defies logic when it's just as easy to do the opposite? You don't even have to utilize any selective observation to get there.

Because it isn't - and that's a false dichotomy. The easier thing to imagine is that the writers and designers of FF, like they always have, suck a world-building and did not think this through. They didn't when they designed Midgar, which has the exact same problem, although not to the same extend given that Midgar isn't occupied by enemy forces.

We don't see any bathrooms in the game that I can recall, but I feel like it's reasonable to conclude that they exist.

Not analogous. There are plenty of building for bathrooms to exist within Insomnia, where we don't see them.
Unless Insomnia's farm lands are made up of thousands of tiny greenhouses hidden within appartnment buildings, there are no places for farm lands to hide within those walls - at least not to sustain the city for a prolonged period of time.

No, the answer to this problem is pretty simple I think -
Insomnia, was designed to look like a Tokyo or New York, on top of which it was probably designed with the artists not asking that question, or designing the city like Tokyo or New York, namely to be a city that depends on import.
They did that, and the writer(s) wrote the plot of the invasion not considering that the occupation of the city would completely render the need for that invation pointless.
The problem is never squared because nobody every noticed it, and thougt nobody else would either.

They were probably right though. Most people didn't catch it, or probably wouldn't care if they did.
I'm simply saying I did, and I care. I care because it's indicative of a trend with the entire game (Hurr hurr cellhpones in FFXV anyone?) - it's one of the many straws that broke the camel's back playing this game.

You wanna serve me the light hearted romp filled with plot-holes and weird shit like the earlier games - don't aim for a quasi-photorealistic art style, and use dumb tag lines like "a fantasy based on reality".

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It is if you're insisting that the possibility for such a plan must be present within the setting when it clearly isn't.

I disagree. A plot that wants to be taken seriously should provide understandable rationals for why people do the things they do. If the easier, more practical and more resource friendly thing is to simply starve Insomnia, that's what we should expect.

We apply this standard all the time to fiction. Why is FFXV excempt?

It isn't. Again, the fact that Insomnia is doing well 30 years on means the "starve them out" thing self-evidently is not "the easier, more practical and more resource friendly thing." There's your understandable rationale right there.

Hell, it's not even that difficult to imagine that Niflheim may have at first thought that actually was an option only to be very disappointed as time went on, with the emperor ultimately deciding that he wanted to make sure "the empire shall span all the lands" (direct quote from him) in his lifetime.

Aldercapt doesn't always do "the easier, more practical and more resource friendly thing" in the first place. You should know that, having played the game. He's obsessed with power and expanding the empire.

For that matter, the whole thing was

Spoiler: Chapter 13 spoilers

part of Ardyn's twisted plan to make Noctis inherit the ring and become the King of Light while also ruining everything important to him. Ardyn probably had some hand in the timing -- and you know he wasn't concerned with what was in Niflheim's best interest.

The audience is most definitely not meant to be thinking about such a thing. If you're asking "Why doesn't the empire just wait for them to starve?" you've misunderstood something.

There are plenty of things audiences are not supposed to think about - that does not mean that a story isn't critiqueworthy because the author didn't want us to think about something.
Maybe that something is something the author should have thought about, and so people wouldn't have to think about it regardless of whether or not we're supposed to think about it.

And sometimes people latch onto things that they could easily explain to their own satisfaction.

Going with your later toilet example - In many RPGs, it's not just a matter of toilets not being seen - many houses will not have toilets or bathrooms. We're not supposed to think about that. However, most of those RPG are not telling us they aimed for realism.
FFXV did. You ask me to expect realism, you don't get dimiss criticism for when your game magically ceases to be realistic - especially considering aspects that are directly relevant to the plot - such as elements that throw into the basic rational behind plot changing decissions.

If you aren't going to take issue with the bathrooms thing despite all the other common, everyday stuff the devs went out of their way to show us people doing -- and even to let us do ourselves (cooking, clothes getting dirty, eating at diners, filling up the gas tank, etc.) -- then I can't really take the rest of your critique seriously.

Being logical about this (at least if we're going to harp on realism), programming Noctis needing to take a shit or piss should be the next most immediate thing to address, not where Insomnia's carrots are growing. (Which, while we're on the topic, is yet another thing the player can do: Farm! At Cape Caem. It's really not at all a topic the game forgot. That you aren't satisfied with any explanations that are sitting right there for you to work with is on you.)

Again, there's clearly no possibility for this to even be a strategy. There's no rationing of resources or concerns about them.

They have fast food joints in Insomnia for God's sake ...

And that's the plot hole here. You repeating it doesn't explain it, why are you acting as if it does. It's the very thing I'm saying is ridiclous.
Insomnia should not have operating fast food chains at this point.
In fact, the citizens should be running around in panick by now, searching for food.

Yet they aren't. Guess that means they got food.

Nothing spoken, no, but you can take one look at designs of the city and see that every nook and cranny wasn't dedicated to buildings.

Which doesn't matter. Did you just not see what I just wrote? To feed a place that size for even a short period of time you'd need farmlands the size of the site itself, if not twice over.

Here is Insomnia :

Spoiler

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9a/da/4d/9ada4d238a75296feb4f8aaf198381f6.jpg

There is not enough land within the city walls to grow enough food for a city that size.

I'll grant that you seem to know more about agriculture than I do, but I'd wager you know nothing about agriculture in this fictional world. Not that I do either, mind you.

Apparently they can grow carrots to full size overnight, though, rather than it taking more than a season ... such that a restaurant owner can decide on a whim to begin buying his produce off a newly broken plot of land ...

Little things like that really void any argument one may be tempted to bring to the table about real-world farming and the limitations it should impose on agriculture in the capital city of a magical kingdom in this fictional world.

Unless half of the city is actually composed of fetching green houses

Well done.

Anyway, yeah, as you yourself just discovered there while being sardonic, there are a host of possibilities to resolve this fiction-breaking quandary for you if you're just willing to let it be resolved.

Maybe vegetables grow faster in their world, as the "Living Off the Land" sidequest suggests.

Maybe in addition to erecting an invisible magical barrier over an enormous city, Regis uses some of the Crystal's power to help the city's farmers get more out of less. After all, the Crystal supposedly "blessed our world and its people," as well as brings "lasting prosperity," and we know from the Ultimania that the "energy drinks such as Potions and Elixirs have a restorative effect due to their properties being altered by Noctis's magical powers."

Or maybe it's public policy in Insomnia that every building has to have a fucking greenhouse! I don't know. I don't really care either.

I just know they got food 'cause they ain't dead, and that I feel this is an odd choice of thing to complain about in a game where the developers went so far out of their way to include so many little details and to actually explain how so much else within the setting works the way it does (havens, conjured weapons, restorative items, etc., etc.). Sure, a lot of it comes down to "Yeah, magic an' shit," but how many other games actually go to the trouble of providing an in-universe explanation for Hammerspace??

Or we, knowing a) that farmland is probably needed, and b) that there's extensive undeveloped land inside the city walls -- much of which we never get a good look at -- could easily conclude that the required farmland must be present. =P

No. Just No.

Yes. Absolutely yes.

The alternative is that they would have starved by now. They haven't. Therefore, the means to feed them must be present.

I really don't see how this matter invites controversy.

You wanna serve me the light hearted romp filled with plot-holes and weird shit like the earlier games - don't aim for a quasi-photorealistic art style, and use dumb tag lines like "a fantasy based on reality".

To be fair, you're overlooking that the word "fantasy" is also in that tagline by getting yourself too worked up over "reality" being there.

 

[Flare]

BlindingAwesomeness (who is really good people, by the way; I've had a few conversations with BA) has now posted the complete transcript of this presentation. It's thoroughly interesting.

I enjoyed reading this; what caught my attention the most (aka what I think would be fun to see implemented possibly in a future FF) were his ideas for Story Placement, Ability and Leveling System, and Leveling Balance (right after Slide 16, that whole section was interesting to read).

 

[lithiumkatana17]

I can't believe we're really arguing over of the possibility of food shortages and how Insomnia should've been starved out in 30+ years. What a time to be alive.

Has anyone considered the fact that maybe food providers get shipments of stuff brought in from outside the city? I'm sure Insomnia doesn't forbid their citizens from leaving. Think about it--food shipments for technology/resources from the Crown City. Sounds like a fair trade.

Instead of debating this why it ISN'T possible, let's all just come up with our own headcanons for how it IS possible.

BOOM. Problem solved.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

A couple of Cidney's sidequests make the point that there haven't been any goods to come out of Insomnia in 30 years, making stuff like Insomnian carwax and headlights the stuff of legend.

That said, I agree with you 100% that it's silly to debate how something that obviously did happen didn't.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Duhr.

But seriously, think about it. Surely food vendors in a big city like that might have other ways of getting shipments of food in that don't involve farming inside the wall. Maybe some of them moved into Insomnia years ago and kept contacts in Lestallum or some crap. There are plenty of ways to easily explain how Insomnia never had a food shortage in 30 years.