"Whatever XB2 has."
It's weird to have someone discuss the merits of a system they clearly either chose not to or just didn't engage with and then say that I'm focused on the "individual instead of the party" and then talk about things that are also in XB2 lol.
Poppi is the most powerful blade in the game if you engage with the minigame, especially in her third form. However in NG+ they heard the fan backlash to that and made it to where a lot of QoL things could be bought with bonus EXP you gained, making things like the gems to buy her upgrades and stuff available to help ease the pain.
To try and distill as much as possible so I'm not spending this whole thread talking about the game that Era hates, XB2 has all the of the individual mechanics that XB1 has and then some, including the ability to more freely change gamestyles on the fly based on characters instead of being shoehorned into specific characters you may not like in order to have an optimum build.
In the vanilla game the rolls for blades and such were garbo for sure, but they made driver shifts and driver cores easy to get (They were easy as early as chapter 4 but I won't go into that here) and gave you SO MANY freebie Blades that I have to wonder how anyone had issues with the combat beyond having to actually delve into it. It doesn't become impossible to beat bosses without using Poppi, in fact I even subbed out Rex and didn't use him and played the whole game as Zeke as soon as I got him, because I preferred him as a character, and found an arrangement of blades that worked for him.
All of the blade weapon types work different on different characters, allowing for a lot of different variances in gameplay and allowing for each character to play completely diferently, with some being predisposed towards certain roles while others being able to fulfill the role if you engage with it enough. For example my Nia was an Ether cannon user and she can decimate literally everything. My Zeke was my main damage dealer and Morag and Tora were my swap in tanks until I got the heal on crit item that made tanking less relevant as a result.
The driver combos on top of blade combos make you get to vary up elemental builds for each character, and the ZR/ZL shoulder button command over your party members allowed for more control over the battle in general. Not only that, but the AI was specifically designed to have a priority system that could be exploited and/or manipulated in order to make your characters always build towards the most powerful attacks and combos for maximum damage, on top of the fleshing out of affinty charts for drivers and blades that opened up even more build variety.
A build with Zeke Morag and Nia plays different than a party of Tora Rex and Nia for example, with a lot of variances in how each blade art works for each character. And that's not even including the second driver chart they added that unlocks even more insane builds to make characters like Zeke less outshined by Rex's endgame abilities AND Blade Passives. For someone speaking about group dynamics it's not coming off as you understanding the group dynamic shift when experimenting with blades at all. TO BE FAIR I can't blame people for not grinding cores and stuff like I did to get all the blades, because as stated before, the roll system was garbage for sure. That being said the only thing about XB1 that is different and some could argue is better is the fact that the INDIVIDUAL play styles are not as similar per character in XB1 as they are in 2, which is the tradeoff for more open ended blade setups and such.
You can say it provides more freedom but I have to assume the post is in bad faith and/or not engaged with the fight system to any degree because the endgame possibilities and build potentials are insane in XB2. I think Quality over quantity is the way to go moving forward(as stated before I think going the Torna approach with set builds and THEN having a FEW extra builds to help add some open build variety, versus the quantity in XB2s main campaign is the way to go), but anyone who thinks the XB1 system which is essentially just a basic cooldown system with comboing skills is more indepth/customizeable than XB2 has to have not played the endgame at all I feel. I won't derail the thread further though, I've had enough XB2 shit posting to last me a life time at this point haha.
