Final Fantasy VII Remake's Lead Battle Programmer Satoru Koyama on the next entry: "My goal is to surpass Final Fantasy XII’s Gambit system."

[Dreamboum]

So it seems the Remake Ultimania has been translated and there are some cool morsels in there, and this account shares some of them:


Something that caught my eye is seeing FFVII Remake's Lead Battle Programmer Satoru Koyama claim his goal is to surpass FFXII's gambit system for the next entry.

Q: What sorts of challenges would you like to tackle in your next work?
A: This time around, we had it so AI teammates could only perform the Attack command in order to allow players to switch between characters as they fight. However, next time, I'd like to create an AI that can juggle a variety of techniques and magic. My goal is to surpass Final Fantasy XII's Gambit system. I'd also like to focus more energy into aspects that support player control, such as Classic Mode, where characters fight automatically. I think it's a shame when people can't play a game they're interested in just because they aren't skilled with action-oriented mechanics.

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View: https://twitter.com/ShinraArch/status/1644392213135097885


It seems like his goal is to expand on what the AI could not do in FFVII Remake which focused on only attacking. Satoru Koyama previously worked on the Way of the Samurai series, Samurai Western, before joining Square on FFXIII-2, Lightning Returns and now FFVII Remake.

What do you think? Good idea, bad idea?

mod edit: removed links/tweets to the book scans, these are for sale commercially.

 

[Ovvv]

All I want in terms of improvements are letting you tag in non-active party members mid-combo to continue your string like something out of a tag fighter and combo moves like the ones we got in Intermission. I'm good with the AI as is.

Oh, and give me a party-wide Limit Break please.

 

[Wrexis]

The gambit system was ahead of its time, so sure. But I don't think most people actually want to tinker with with their NPCs to that level?
(And yes most people is not Era, I know Era would love this shit).

So yes to AI NPCs, but not necessarily needed to customize them further than FF12 offered?

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Yeah, having the party members actually DO THINGS when not under the player's direct control could potentially alleviate a lot of my issues with VIIR that aren't the garbage stagger gauge.

Like, make it so the party members have a set number of "auto abilities" they can learn and use when not under direct control, and then have some stuff that requires ATB. That would be the way I'd do it.

Oh, and give me a party-wide Limit Break please.

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This would be so hard to do. They'd need to do one for every possible combination of party members.

 

[mute]

I like that the existing system in Pt. 1 encouraged you to swap between characters to be more effective and discouraged just sticking with one character.

 

[nsilvias]

all i want is to program them to not get themselves killed

 

[Yuntu]

Absolutly great idea. AI is the thing combat can improve the most upon and drawing inspiration from the Gambit system for that is the right call.

 

[Banzai]

nooo i don't want to automate them, i loved that the game required me multitasking and giving everyone commands. gambits fucking suck.

"just dont use this feature the combat is designed around" everyone will say and i will hate it.

 

[AuthenticM]

This would certainly be very interesting from a difficulty or accessibility perspective.

 

[AEF1907]

Gimme Team up attacks like in Intermission with Sonon and Yuffie for the whole party in Rebirth and the combat system is perfect.

 

[Helix]

sounds like a quote from Metal Gear

 

[WordsAndDreams]

Personally I don't know if I want something as robust as XII, in the sense that I like how the game was balanced around the idea of needing to issue commands or switch between party members to be effective. But I do want the AI to be better and less brain dead, so really something more in the middle. But I trust whatever they do it will be great.

 

[Wrexis]

I like that the existing system in Pt. 1 encouraged you to swap between characters to be more effective and discouraged just sticking with one character.

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Honestly it was hard to go back to Cloud when Tifa was so much fun.

 

[Savinowned]

Started playing FF7R yesterday and this is definitely my most wanted addition. I get that auto-actions can remove the swapping nature of the gameplay but I think if it's simple enough then it won't mess with it too much

 

[AuthenticM]

nooo i don't want to automate them, i loved that the game required me multitasking and giving everyone commands. gambits fucking suck.

"just dont use this feature the combat is designed around" everyone will say and i will hate it.

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My hope is that the game isn't designed around such an AI system. It's there to alleviate difficulty for those who want it, but you don't have to use it.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Started playing FF7R yesterday and this is definitely my most wanted addition. I get that auto-actions can remove the swapping nature of the gameplay but I think if it's simple enough then it won't mess with it too much

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If I could set things up so I never, ever, ever need to directly control Aeris up until the point she dies, it would be wonderful. Aeris' moveset is awful.

 

[mute]

Honestly it was hard to go back to Cloud when Tifa was so much fun.

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Make a Tifa-only prequel game sure, but I don't feel the need to de-emphasize the party since if that is your thing you have other games catering to you.

 

[nelsonroyale]

I am sure you can still contol them, this just means they are able to perform much better when you aren't. This is super exciting!

 

[The Unsent]

This would be so hard to do. They'd need to do one for every possible combination of party members.

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I guess they mean like the quickening chains in XII or chain attacks in Xenoblade.

 

[hobblygobbly]

i think ff xii had the best combat in a ff game. it's my favourite. gambit system also further inspired dragon age: origins

granted, gambit system is also an evolution of prior CRPG combat systems

giving you freedom how you control the logic of how your party members act and react is great when you not controlling them directly

 

[sn00zer]

FF7 not having the AI use abilities was perfect because it basically ensured everything happening during the battle was intended by the player. I hate systems like tales where you feel like you're barely contributing and you might as well just be an AI like the rest of your party firing off spells.

 

[Rutger]

While I don't know if it will actually end up on the level of FFXII's gambits, knowing they realize something needs to be done about the AI is wonderful news.

I may not have been the biggest fan of FFVIIR's combat, but I do think improvements can be made to win me over, this is one of them.

 

[Yuntu]

nooo i don't want to automate them, i loved that the game required me multitasking and giving everyone commands. gambits fucking suck.

"just dont use this feature the combat is designed around" everyone will say and i will hate it.

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I mean ... between automating and having more control over the AI while not on them is a huge difference. He didn't say they want to copy the Gambit system. I trust them fully with combat to expand AI in a meaningful way.

 

[Party]

I mean this all sounds cool, but I would literally just be happy if they fixed the part where I would waste a limit break on a boss fight because of a mid-battle cutscene. That was my basically my only problem with what I consider the best fusion of turn-based and action combat I've ever played. VIIR's battle system is god damn near perfect.

 

[Kuro]

He's the programmer, not combat director or designer and I don't think this means gambits so much as an expansion on the easy automatic mode for accessibility. He certainly does want Gambits himself but he doesn't call the shots on that and I hope he doesn't get what he wants, at least not in terms of designing the entire system around that.

I'd much rather see it as a simple accessibility option for automation because it would severely hurt the gameplay to make it the main way to engage with the system like XII was.

 

[Wrexis]

Make a Tifa-only prequel game sure, but I don't feel the need to de-emphasize the party since if that is your thing you have other games catering to you.

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Sure, but I'd welcome chapters focusing on other characters. Maybe not full DLC like Yuffie, but playing as Vincent or Cid for a bit would be fun.
To be fair I mostly got my fill from FFVIIR that way already, there were Tifa and Aerith chapters irc.

 

[ZeoVGM]

nooo i don't want to automate them, i loved that the game required me multitasking and giving everyone commands. gambits fucking suck.

"just dont use this feature the combat is designed around" everyone will say and i will hate it.

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I'm not sure where you're getting this from.

They're obviously not going to take away the ability to switch between characters and control everyone. But giving more options for how they act when you're not controlling them would clearly be an improvement.

 

[ket]

He already has. Imo ff7r has the best combat of any ff game I've played

 

[LazyLain]

nooo i don't want to automate them, i loved that the game required me multitasking and giving everyone commands. gambits fucking suck.

"just dont use this feature the combat is designed around" everyone will say and i will hate it.

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I'll agree that the "just don't use Gambits if you don't like them" stance doesn't really work for XII due to just how frequent encounters are in that game which makes it unreasonably tedious to manually command everyone, but automation being optional could be perfectly fine if the game's designed to accommodate it actually being optional.

I haven't played VII Remake yet but I assume you're not getting swarmed by enemies in the same way as you do in XII, which immediately gives it a huge leg up with regards to optional automation actually being truly optional.

 

[ZeoVGM]

I really hope we can control other characters in the field outside of battle in the future.

One of my few minor complaints with Remake was that it could be jarring swapping back to Cloud when a battle would end. If Tifa is my main in battle, that's who I want to control in the world as well.

 

[ozumas]

I think the game would work both ways: AI being just dumb and force you to swap characters and AI being programmed by the player like FFXll.

I think the game would be more strategy oriented if you programmed the AI and more action and reaction oriented if isn't.

 

[snausages]

The way I see it, it would be hard to implement a gambit system for FFVIIR in a way that scales well to the harder difficulty and challenges. It's kind of a DPS race with the pressure and stagger mechanics, and the conditions you want to use certain abilities on and the way you want to stack them (especially with Tifa) seem like they would present a ton of complexity up front that goes beyond just using the abilities manually.

It's just the nature of the action-RPG hybrid. For instance, what would a player need to do to set up a gambit for when to use Barret's overcharge or Aerith's tempest. A fully charged tempest is like a grenade, the enemy needs to be stationary. Overcharge is something you need to use on cooldown but not when atb is full, also you don't want to use it when enemies are attacking you. There's lots of complexity there that does not map well to the systems that XII has, which isn't really an action game in any degree.

So I'm guessing it would be like a fairly suboptimal way to play the game, but fine for easy and maybe standard difficulty. Something which resembles paradigm shift a bit.

 

[Izanagi89]

Would be interesting if they work more AI tweaking into the Materia system. They already have some basic ones in the game like Auto-Cure and Provoke, but with linking Materia you could set up combos like Provoke + Casting Protect etc. I really love the combat system as is but I'd definitely like there to be more focus on team synergy such as AI behavior and team attacks

 

[Pachinko]

I would like this yeah , even if it testing it out fails and they have to simplify a lofty goal like that. In FF7R you're playing a single player action RPG with what amounts to 1V1 combat , extra enemies and other party members are just there for looks , they're equivalent to style switching really. I did have a lot of fun with it when it was working properly and things just gelled but when it fell apart it fell apart real bad . Even the DLC added some more quirks with Yuffie and her partner that livened things up a bit , felt more like 2V2.

It's really not an easy thing to balance or even engineer but I wish them the best with 7Rb. I think the biggest issue with the current setup is that your partners don't gain AtB so you have to be super proactive with swapping to make sure there's always bars available to use , it can get overwhelming and even exhausting for some boss fights. Likewise if they made your partners full AI , fighting would suddenly become a lot easier so you might need to make enemies have more health or other potential setbacks that could turn combat into more of a slog.

I'm curious what they come up with.

 

[Rickyrozay2o9]

I mean look I'm sure you're going to still want to change characters for specific controlled fight mechanics but just make it so they don't completely turtle up during battles.

 

[Ovvv]

Yeah, having the party members actually DO THINGS when not under the player's direct control could potentially alleviate a lot of my issues with VIIR that aren't the garbage stagger gauge.

Like, make it so the party members have a set number of "auto abilities" they can learn and use when not under direct control, and then have some stuff that requires ATB. That would be the way I'd do it.



This would be so hard to do. They'd need to do one for every possible combination of party members.

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No, I'm saying like an all-out attack Persona style. Only available when the whole party is together if necessary.

 

[Kuro]

The only major issue with the AI in Remake was ranged characters like Barret and Aerith running up close to enemies for no reason. If they fix that, its prettt much all I need other than maybe a dedicated button to command everyone to move to my controlled character.

 

[Lunatic]

Uh is it okay to link that PDF here? I'm assuming this is a book that is for sale no? correct me if i'm wrong please.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

No, I'm saying like an all-out attack Persona style. Only available when the whole party is together if necessary.

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Yeah, that would still require completely specialized animations for every potential combination of characters. I don't think you can just cut away to a bunch of flashes like a Persona game - that would look really cheap and low-budget.

 

[Savinowned]

If I could set things up so I never, ever, ever need to directly control Aeris up until the point she dies, it would be wonderful. Aeris' moveset is awful.

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Since I've only just finished chapter 8 I'm not too annoyed of her yet, using her as a big magic dealer with that nice arcane ward double spell buff.

I still don't get the difference between her square, hold square, triangle, and hold triangle attacks tho. Super confusing

 

[Disclaimer]

Good. Took FF developers long enough to realize the untouched potential of iterating on XII's gambits.

And FFVII-R especially will benefit from it. The first game felt like it'd play a lot better with a gambit-like system.

 

[Fisty]

Hard mode exposed the flawed AI tbh, allies just didn't attack very much on their own which forced you to rely on ATB materia too much. Aeris seemed to attack the least. At least have like "aggressive mode" or something similar. I wouldn't say no a very light Paradigm system

 

[Ovvv]

Yeah, that would still require completely specialized animations for every potential combination of characters. I don't think you can just cut away to a bunch of flashes like a Persona game - that would look really cheap and low-budget.

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You right.

More to the actual thread: Don't think this means iterating on the Gambit system. Think he just means that the Gambit system is the peak of AI in an FF game and he wants to make something better than that, not necessarily iterate on it.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

You right.

More to the actual thread: Don't think this means iterating on the Gambit system. Think he just means that the Gambit system is the peak of AI in an FF game and he wants to make something better than that, not necessarily iterate on it.

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It does sound like he wants to give the party members more things that they can do in combat without the player ordering to do so, at least. And Gambits are a good way to customize that, though clearly not the only way. KH kinda lets you pick which abilities Donald and Goofy have access to, for example.

 

[signal]

Gambit materia that grants you 1 gambit per level so it doesn't trivialize the combat system but allows for at least a bit of automation.

 

[Dice]

Easy. Gambits blew.

 

[jiggle]

Good good good
The dummies were the weakest part of the remake
Just let me stay in Barret most of the time

 

[snausages]

You right.

More to the actual thread: Don't think this means iterating on the Gambit system. Think he just means that the Gambit system is the peak of AI in an FF game and he wants to make something better than that, not necessarily iterate on it.

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Yeah this is probably more like it.

The AI in FFVII R isn't very good, there's a lot they could do there

IMO tho, I would just like a Mass Effect system of opening a big wheel and being able to pick hotkeyed skills from it, and positioning allies like Barret and Aerith at range

 

[Elyian]

Oooo shit. Square got me feasting with these FF tidbits as of late, eh?

 

[Pyro]

A tall task