NO! Don't stand there!

For many reasons I have decided to start this rant. The game that sparked this complaint was Final Fantasy 13 which was recently released, but I have made the same complaint in past games. But first some backstory!

As many know me, they know I play World of Warcraft. I am a raid leader and as such my experience with the game is a little different than others (a little). Most people play WoW to take on the identity of a fantasy warrior and build the character up in order to kill stronger and stronger enemies. My little difference is that I gain my biggest pleasure in the game by working out strategies and organizing a team to be successful.

Part of this organizing involves making people do their jobs. Success on this front is dependent on my ability to communicate what I want, the ability of the player, and my capacity to pick the right players for the job. I have experienced a varied amount of success here, mostly because choosing the right player presents some nasty issues when your friends… suck.

Its terrible during a fight to see someone making a dumb mistake. Standing is what is obviously an unsafe spot is a great example. Sometimes in Warcraft, enemies tend to use area of effect attacks. These attacks damage anyone in a defined area as opposed to one target. It is a valuable skill as a player in an MMORPG to identify the risks of an area effect attack and avoid it. You have an amount of control over this, in the form of direction, which I like.

Now to my complaint: Final Fantasy 13 fails completely to simulate any character’s desire to avoid area of effect attacks. In FF13, battles take place on a battlefield that allows characters to move and never stand in the same place. You on the other hand hold no control over a character’s movement on this battlefield, unless you were to order a melee attack. The artificial intelligence is given the task of movement. The artificial intelligence also has a hard on for characters strafing into each other. This grouping tendency leads to multiple party members being by strong attacks. A couple steps to the side could decrease the overall damage I take by 50% or 66% depending on the range of the attack. I’d lost count of how many fights my team took multiple unnecessary hits while I yelled at the screen.

Final Fantasy 12 had this problem as well, so obviously Squaresoft has not learned its lesson. The same thing happened there. Party members would circle the boss but prefer to keep near their teammates. Nevermind that they were constantly bombarded and never took on to the clues at had. At least in FF12, you could cheat it by using gambits to encourage one of your party members to stay the fuck back.

The solution to this would be to add a tactical element the new game. Simple orders to group up or spread out, or stand behind the boss would be extremely welcome to a player like myself. We are already using multiple attack types, and changing jobs on the fly during fights (and very constantly in the end, this is a strength of FF13). Final Fantasy games tell the story of people who become strong enough to defeat creatures that only exist in legends. Is it too much to ask that they act like it?