Final Fantasy XV (was Versus XIII)
- Thread starter Arianna
- Start date
Tetsujin
he/they
- AKA
- Tets
trash panda
---m(O.O)gle---
- AKA
- Howl
Make a nominations thread first! I know just who to nominate...^.^
Hisako
消えないひさ&#
- AKA
- Satsu, BRIAN BLESSED, MIGHTY AND WISE Junpei Iori: Ace Detective, Maccaffrickstonson von Lichtenstafford Frabenschnaben, Polite Krogan, Robert Baratheon
Uh-huh
Sorry, almost couldn't hear you over the sound of historians giggling there
That's cool.
Dragonslayer Ornstein
Pro Adventurer
beat it. I loved the chocobo ranch. Damn do I want an ff7 remake in this engine
Tetsujin
he/they
- AKA
- Tets
Lex
Administrator
OK since most of us are sleeping, here's a small breakdown of what I've seen so far.
I'm finding everything about this fascinating, which is weird because normally I skip through it for footage.
Do any of you remember that survey they had owners of the demo do? (I did it, I think it's in the Type-0 thread)? Well they're going through it question by question to cover the feedback, and Tabata is reacting to it (its supposed to be his first time seeing the numbers). Of particular note is the differences between the regions.
I will update this list as I watch more, so watch out for edits. If people post in the meantime I can quote the completed thing in a new post when I'm done for those who cba with the video.
When I talk about highs and lows, lows are around 8 out of ten. The feedback was very positive (I'm not surprised).
- Worldwide the game scored 8.3 out of 10 from fans (8.0 in Japan, 8.3 in Europe, 8.6 in North America)
- The music scored around 9.5 in all regions
- Every regions favourite character is Gladiolus, which surprised Tabata greatly (Glad scored higher than Noct in all categories in every region, particularly in EU)
- Prompto scored the lowest in all regions.
- NA and EU hated the English voice acting compared to JP
- Controls scored very low in Japan (7.1) compared to EU and NA
- Overall, controls were the thing people liked least, scoring a 7-7.5 in each region
- NA's primary reason for getting the demo was "I like RPG's", Japan's was "I like FF"
- Will you play the demo again if you finished it or not? - EU 88%, JP 89%, NA 64%
- When asked why they stopped playing the demo, NA players responded with "I did it all" (78.9%). In contrast those who responded that way in Japan were 5%, and though this was the EU's biggest response (40.6%), 27.4% of EU players also said "the world was bare without things to do". Japans biggest responses were "I didn't like the characters" and "I didn't understand the goals"
- Most said they got a general impression of what the game is going to be like
- Did you buy Type-0 for the demo? The place which one out a clear "yes" was Japan, but that's obvious. Most places said it influenced their purchase greatly.
- Japanese players found the game too difficult. Nobody from NA or EU did. Very odd.
- Which type of communication do you want to see with the dev team? Most said "Another survey" and "videos like this".
Open answer questions:
- Eventually the team will read them all (lol right I'm sure)
- 15 most common criticisms :
- Number 1 "by a landslide" - the "lock-on" control was useless (agree), specifically with respect to how the camera functioned. Tabata facepalmed and is like "yeah we're not happy with it yet". The dev team has the same criticism and they're working on it. They feel like they didn't explain the function properly in the demo.
- 2. camera is too close, can't tell what's going on. Agree. Made that assessment of it in here. I don't know why we need to see the bottom of Noctis's shoes. They're implementing a control to allow the camera to move back in certain situations. "We will improve it, not being able to tell what is going on is unacceptable". Considering allowing the player to choose the distance (YES PLEASE YES XIV HAS RUINED ME IN THIS RESPECT).
- 3. Camera control is sluggish. Response "the camera will definitely be improved"
- 4. The AI is dumb. Allies get in the way. Response "[The fact that] the party are getting in the way of the player is a hindrance to the game experience". Their goal is to feel each character's personality and camaraderie as you're fighting, but they haven't perfected it yet. They need to polish this aspect. "We will take the time to get this right"
- 5. The jaggies. But the drop in frame rate is more concering. Apparently this was the most popular amongst players from NA and EU (frame rate, not jaggies). Response: Jaggies and frame rates are separate issues. Final game will have anti-aliasing, rest assured. Frame rate is the highest priority as it will have the worst effect on action games if not improved. They can't simply reduce the number of processes because that would impact the experience, so they're just trying to optimise everything as best they can. Our highest priority is the frame rate, not the resolution, though we are still aiming for Full HD (they must mean 1080?)
- 6. The motion is realistic which is cool, but it makes the movement feel slow. (I don't have this criticism tbh, it feels like there's a nice balance and don't forget you don't get to use a vehicle or chocobo in the demo). Response: the movement speed will actually change in the final game dependent on which weapons you have equipped. Armiger already increases the speed. They speculate that the reason the speed is a criticism is because of the high paced action shown at the 2013 E3 trailer, but are pressing that this section of the game (in the demo) is not the section shown at E3, so the feel is going to be different.
- 7. Add a minimap and compass please (I LIKED that there wasn't a minimap :/) Response: "we will (laughter)". They're definitely implementing one. A radar is not in the plan, just a minimap.
- 8. I want dodge action that doesn't rely on MP (prominent response from JP). Response: There's a dodge roll that doesn't rely on MP. Only the warp dodge does. The UI elements for the regular roll were not implemented in the demo due to a memory limit. The warp dodge requires less load so they used that instead.
- 9. This game relies too heavily on hiding behind rocks and replenishing MP *laughter*. There is too much of a reliance on MP. Response: the final release will focus less on MP, a recharge rate and balance was implemented for the demo. A lot of tactics will be available that don't require MP so MP will recover while doing those, and also battles will be shorter in the final game so MP is less of a worry. Though warping to a tower to recover MP is a fun tactic (i agree).
- 10. Japanese players said the battles were far too hard, NA and EU players said they were too easy. Response: The best solution is probably to include difficulty options, though this isn't implemented currently. However they're targeting a worldwide same-day release so this may not be possible.
- 11. It's too monotonous. (I found it calming tbh.) Response: Something about allowing button configuration? Resolving the issue with battles feeling too long will probably resolve the issue of them feeling monotonous. Also more abilities.
- 12. It's annoying that stamina is needed for dashing. Response: I think that's a logical feature, it's better to have ups and downs. You can improve speed and distance by eating certain foods which were not in the demo, so this will probably take care of it. So if you're planning to travel far the next day you can eat a meal that give you that boost. "Everybody, look forward to Ignis's culinary skills"
- 13. Many players enjoyed warping but wished they could always move around like that. Response: This was possible until February and it was always our plan, but it caused too many bugs so we decided to limit it to just battles. When asked if it could be implemented again he explained that they haven't found a breakthrough to be confident that they'll re-add this feature for movement for the final release without encountering bugs everywhere. The final release will have more warp points due to the size of areas.
- 14. Please let me cancel attacks by evading. Players (including the marketing guy) found it frustrating that they couldn't evade if they'd initiated an attack. Response: we had plans to make this a feature. Why didn't we put this in the demo? *someone answers off-screen* we couldn't invest time into this for the demo. It's already in there (implemented), but not for every attack. You can't cancel all attacks by evading, so it requires some strategy.
- 15. Lots of bugs (huh?) Response: They apologise and bow. They talk about getting to Titan glitch and laugh a bit about it. "We all saw it". Jokes aside they heard about bugs where players lost their save data, they sincerely apologise. Of course bugs like this will be worked out before the game is released. We will be very thorough.
Some other criticisms stood out from the western market, this one is from NA and EU:
NA: Noctis's voice is very strange! Response: they left recording the voices too late for the demo even though they wanted to include English VA's for the demo. He agrees that his voice isn't right but it was too late to re-record. "The character's charm isn't coming through with the current acting". The voice acting is already different from what is in the demo.
EU: Cindy is too sexy. Put her in the party (waaaaaaaaaat). Response: She is not designed to be an erotic character, she is designed to be energetic and feisty. I don't think we want to change the current concept. *they ask the guy who's been working on Cindy, who is off-camera*. They discuss that it may be that EU players mean she is showing too much skin. She is not designed to be sexy, just energetic, however they chastise themselves as men for creating the character this way. He jokes about removing Prompto and replacing him with Cindy (but isn't serious). They're interested in the dynamic between the four male characters and adding Cindy to the mix would change how they interact too much.
They have a general idea of what areas need to be addressed from this report. A lot of things are already being fixed. They are planning to release an update to the current episode duscae demo in future with these changes to see how players respond to the changes they're making, but this hasn't been cleared yet. It's a "half-baked announcement". But they've already started work on it even though they haven't got permission yet. They are hoping to release it in May. If they can't release it they'll use it at an event to get player feedback.
Features: Camera improvements, movement improvements, battle improvements. Dodge roll (maybe). Range of actions has been improved. Will tweak MP recovery. Bug fixes. Getting rid of the titan bug (although maybe you can get to titan through a different method). Under consideration: Individual quests (as in solo character quests). Or in the morning you can pair say two characters instead of all 4, and the dialogue will change based on who is with who.
Future announcements:
Their target for the next major reveal is Gamescom in Germany, not E3. However there will be a trailer for E3. They may do another video like this in late May prior to E3.
"We hope to create more opportunities to have your voices heard"
End.
I'm finding everything about this fascinating, which is weird because normally I skip through it for footage.
Do any of you remember that survey they had owners of the demo do? (I did it, I think it's in the Type-0 thread)? Well they're going through it question by question to cover the feedback, and Tabata is reacting to it (its supposed to be his first time seeing the numbers). Of particular note is the differences between the regions.
I will update this list as I watch more, so watch out for edits. If people post in the meantime I can quote the completed thing in a new post when I'm done for those who cba with the video.
When I talk about highs and lows, lows are around 8 out of ten. The feedback was very positive (I'm not surprised).
- Worldwide the game scored 8.3 out of 10 from fans (8.0 in Japan, 8.3 in Europe, 8.6 in North America)
- The music scored around 9.5 in all regions
- Every regions favourite character is Gladiolus, which surprised Tabata greatly (Glad scored higher than Noct in all categories in every region, particularly in EU)
- Prompto scored the lowest in all regions.
- NA and EU hated the English voice acting compared to JP
- Controls scored very low in Japan (7.1) compared to EU and NA
- Overall, controls were the thing people liked least, scoring a 7-7.5 in each region
- NA's primary reason for getting the demo was "I like RPG's", Japan's was "I like FF"
- Will you play the demo again if you finished it or not? - EU 88%, JP 89%, NA 64%
- When asked why they stopped playing the demo, NA players responded with "I did it all" (78.9%). In contrast those who responded that way in Japan were 5%, and though this was the EU's biggest response (40.6%), 27.4% of EU players also said "the world was bare without things to do". Japans biggest responses were "I didn't like the characters" and "I didn't understand the goals"
- Most said they got a general impression of what the game is going to be like
- Did you buy Type-0 for the demo? The place which one out a clear "yes" was Japan, but that's obvious. Most places said it influenced their purchase greatly.
- Japanese players found the game too difficult. Nobody from NA or EU did. Very odd.
- Which type of communication do you want to see with the dev team? Most said "Another survey" and "videos like this".
Open answer questions:
- Eventually the team will read them all (lol right I'm sure)
- 15 most common criticisms :
- Number 1 "by a landslide" - the "lock-on" control was useless (agree), specifically with respect to how the camera functioned. Tabata facepalmed and is like "yeah we're not happy with it yet". The dev team has the same criticism and they're working on it. They feel like they didn't explain the function properly in the demo.
- 2. camera is too close, can't tell what's going on. Agree. Made that assessment of it in here. I don't know why we need to see the bottom of Noctis's shoes. They're implementing a control to allow the camera to move back in certain situations. "We will improve it, not being able to tell what is going on is unacceptable". Considering allowing the player to choose the distance (YES PLEASE YES XIV HAS RUINED ME IN THIS RESPECT).
- 3. Camera control is sluggish. Response "the camera will definitely be improved"
- 4. The AI is dumb. Allies get in the way. Response "[The fact that] the party are getting in the way of the player is a hindrance to the game experience". Their goal is to feel each character's personality and camaraderie as you're fighting, but they haven't perfected it yet. They need to polish this aspect. "We will take the time to get this right"
- 5. The jaggies. But the drop in frame rate is more concering. Apparently this was the most popular amongst players from NA and EU (frame rate, not jaggies). Response: Jaggies and frame rates are separate issues. Final game will have anti-aliasing, rest assured. Frame rate is the highest priority as it will have the worst effect on action games if not improved. They can't simply reduce the number of processes because that would impact the experience, so they're just trying to optimise everything as best they can. Our highest priority is the frame rate, not the resolution, though we are still aiming for Full HD (they must mean 1080?)
- 6. The motion is realistic which is cool, but it makes the movement feel slow. (I don't have this criticism tbh, it feels like there's a nice balance and don't forget you don't get to use a vehicle or chocobo in the demo). Response: the movement speed will actually change in the final game dependent on which weapons you have equipped. Armiger already increases the speed. They speculate that the reason the speed is a criticism is because of the high paced action shown at the 2013 E3 trailer, but are pressing that this section of the game (in the demo) is not the section shown at E3, so the feel is going to be different.
- 7. Add a minimap and compass please (I LIKED that there wasn't a minimap :/) Response: "we will (laughter)". They're definitely implementing one. A radar is not in the plan, just a minimap.
- 8. I want dodge action that doesn't rely on MP (prominent response from JP). Response: There's a dodge roll that doesn't rely on MP. Only the warp dodge does. The UI elements for the regular roll were not implemented in the demo due to a memory limit. The warp dodge requires less load so they used that instead.
- 9. This game relies too heavily on hiding behind rocks and replenishing MP *laughter*. There is too much of a reliance on MP. Response: the final release will focus less on MP, a recharge rate and balance was implemented for the demo. A lot of tactics will be available that don't require MP so MP will recover while doing those, and also battles will be shorter in the final game so MP is less of a worry. Though warping to a tower to recover MP is a fun tactic (i agree).
- 10. Japanese players said the battles were far too hard, NA and EU players said they were too easy. Response: The best solution is probably to include difficulty options, though this isn't implemented currently. However they're targeting a worldwide same-day release so this may not be possible.
- 11. It's too monotonous. (I found it calming tbh.) Response: Something about allowing button configuration? Resolving the issue with battles feeling too long will probably resolve the issue of them feeling monotonous. Also more abilities.
- 12. It's annoying that stamina is needed for dashing. Response: I think that's a logical feature, it's better to have ups and downs. You can improve speed and distance by eating certain foods which were not in the demo, so this will probably take care of it. So if you're planning to travel far the next day you can eat a meal that give you that boost. "Everybody, look forward to Ignis's culinary skills"
- 13. Many players enjoyed warping but wished they could always move around like that. Response: This was possible until February and it was always our plan, but it caused too many bugs so we decided to limit it to just battles. When asked if it could be implemented again he explained that they haven't found a breakthrough to be confident that they'll re-add this feature for movement for the final release without encountering bugs everywhere. The final release will have more warp points due to the size of areas.
- 14. Please let me cancel attacks by evading. Players (including the marketing guy) found it frustrating that they couldn't evade if they'd initiated an attack. Response: we had plans to make this a feature. Why didn't we put this in the demo? *someone answers off-screen* we couldn't invest time into this for the demo. It's already in there (implemented), but not for every attack. You can't cancel all attacks by evading, so it requires some strategy.
- 15. Lots of bugs (huh?) Response: They apologise and bow. They talk about getting to Titan glitch and laugh a bit about it. "We all saw it". Jokes aside they heard about bugs where players lost their save data, they sincerely apologise. Of course bugs like this will be worked out before the game is released. We will be very thorough.
Some other criticisms stood out from the western market, this one is from NA and EU:
NA: Noctis's voice is very strange! Response: they left recording the voices too late for the demo even though they wanted to include English VA's for the demo. He agrees that his voice isn't right but it was too late to re-record. "The character's charm isn't coming through with the current acting". The voice acting is already different from what is in the demo.
EU: Cindy is too sexy. Put her in the party (waaaaaaaaaat). Response: She is not designed to be an erotic character, she is designed to be energetic and feisty. I don't think we want to change the current concept. *they ask the guy who's been working on Cindy, who is off-camera*. They discuss that it may be that EU players mean she is showing too much skin. She is not designed to be sexy, just energetic, however they chastise themselves as men for creating the character this way. He jokes about removing Prompto and replacing him with Cindy (but isn't serious). They're interested in the dynamic between the four male characters and adding Cindy to the mix would change how they interact too much.
They have a general idea of what areas need to be addressed from this report. A lot of things are already being fixed. They are planning to release an update to the current episode duscae demo in future with these changes to see how players respond to the changes they're making, but this hasn't been cleared yet. It's a "half-baked announcement". But they've already started work on it even though they haven't got permission yet. They are hoping to release it in May. If they can't release it they'll use it at an event to get player feedback.
Features: Camera improvements, movement improvements, battle improvements. Dodge roll (maybe). Range of actions has been improved. Will tweak MP recovery. Bug fixes. Getting rid of the titan bug (although maybe you can get to titan through a different method). Under consideration: Individual quests (as in solo character quests). Or in the morning you can pair say two characters instead of all 4, and the dialogue will change based on who is with who.
Future announcements:
Their target for the next major reveal is Gamescom in Germany, not E3. However there will be a trailer for E3. They may do another video like this in late May prior to E3.
"We hope to create more opportunities to have your voices heard"
End.
Last edited:
Strangelove
AI Researcher
- AKA
- hitoshura
bugger
i forgot to complete that survey
i forgot to complete that survey
ForceStealer
Double Growth
Thanks for the summary, Lex.
lol, funny to see their surprise at the most masculine of the characters be the favorite. (Though I'm sure it was more than just that, as I recall he also had the best dialogue/jokes.)
Why do the Japanese suck so hard at action games? All of the old school "Nintendo Hard" games were Japanese.
And why are Westerners so much more obsessed with graphical fidelity? Not that a smooth framerate and "jaggies" aren't important, but it was a demo!
Noctis' voice didn't strike me as all that odd *shrug*
Interesting to see them address "Cindy." Though facepalm at the "not designed to be sexy" line. I never expected that they would change her design at this stage, but come on. As I said before, I would be so much more tolerant of it if they had gone with EITHER the booty shorts or the tits hanging out. Both is just too over the top. Obviously neither make good sense for a mechanic, but I'd be willing to grant them one.
Although they didn't address the most important issue regarding her: call her "Cidney," dammit!
lol, funny to see their surprise at the most masculine of the characters be the favorite. (Though I'm sure it was more than just that, as I recall he also had the best dialogue/jokes.)
Why do the Japanese suck so hard at action games? All of the old school "Nintendo Hard" games were Japanese.
And why are Westerners so much more obsessed with graphical fidelity? Not that a smooth framerate and "jaggies" aren't important, but it was a demo!
Noctis' voice didn't strike me as all that odd *shrug*
Interesting to see them address "Cindy." Though facepalm at the "not designed to be sexy" line. I never expected that they would change her design at this stage, but come on. As I said before, I would be so much more tolerant of it if they had gone with EITHER the booty shorts or the tits hanging out. Both is just too over the top. Obviously neither make good sense for a mechanic, but I'd be willing to grant them one.
Although they didn't address the most important issue regarding her: call her "Cidney," dammit!
Blade
That Man
- AKA
- Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
It depends on the genre, really. When it comes to things like rhythm and fighting games, Japanese players are unreal. Action RPGs are a little different from "action games" per se... they're used to turn based and tactical stuff, I believe.
NES games had a bigger venue in America, back in the day, I think... Famicom kinda... didn't as much.
Lex
Administrator
Danke. Btw the image you chose is faaaaaaabulously appropriate.
Remnant-of-VII
Black Mage Mechanic
- AKA
- Remy
Lex
Administrator
Tbh there's a truly horrendous sexist moment in that video that I've kind of avoided mentioning because I wanted to pretend it didn't exist but since we're on the topic; when they're mentioning all the stuff about how having her around would have changed the group dynamic, one of them (can't remember who) made a joke about how she might clean the tent and I was like ughghgGHGh why. WHY. Just shut your stupid misogynistic mouth ffs.
ForceStealer
Double Growth
Shademp
420
Fan redesign of Cindy
If only for the sake of giving her clothes that make sense, I prefer this design.
If only for the sake of giving her clothes that make sense, I prefer this design.
ForceStealer
Double Growth
Exactly! You could very easily still give her tig ol' bitties AND make her actually resemble a mechanic.
Dragonslayer Ornstein
Pro Adventurer
It's no surprise to me that the japanese found the game harder than we did. It has a lot of western design philosophies. They probably found all the things designed to make AAA games easier to be alien and somewhat bewildering. I got lost a few times, myself.