Meaningless Battles...

[Hayden]

This was a big issue I had with the latest extreme. Actually pissed me off a bit, it was so frustrating. Though I do have the stance of "if you have to force the protagonist to sit there and listen to the villain monologue/let the villain enact their master plan and the protagonist just sits there and lets it happen, your writing might not be very good". I don't appreciate forced idiocy/ineptitude for my character. It's not very hard to have SOMETHING happen that prevents the protagonist from not being fully capable of stopping you and just not doing it because we gotta let the narrative happen!

All of this and more.

Like, I get it...we have to have a big show down with Big Bad, so he can reveal he really isn't the Big Bad but just you wait while he calls BIG BAD.

You said it perfectly, I'm tired of losing the fight because the Narrative says I need to lose. Don't just make the big bad recover instantly, laugh at us, claim this was his plan all along, then boot us out with a "force field boss is too strong" Like, let me enjoy my victory a little. Put a few cut scenes between our win and his push back. Maybe think up another way to pull it off other than "lose in the scene" I'm so damn tired of FFXIV losing in the cut scene after winning in the battle.

I think the issue is HOW the unwinnable battle is presented and not the fact it exists. I wanna say Xenoblade Chronicles 2 does it several times where you are just absolutely SPANKING the enemy. I mean just straight up handing them their sorry butts and the cutscene plays out where they just immediately hand wave you away like you were a fly the entire time.

Um. No. I was beating the crap out if you. Your bar was zero and you barely touched me. The cutscene should reflect that.

If they want it done right...the boss needs to be fast, your attacks do negligible damage and they hit you and you are practically half dead.

Now the cutscene makes sense. You really were a joke to them and that's how it played out in combat.

Also yeah ToD is on my top 10. PS1 was golden age of a lot of JRPGs.

Yup. This is how I felt with the most recent trial. It wasn't even close...we kicked his ass. It was a fun fight and we won. Don't just do the goddamn "kneel for a few seconds then stand up, laugh, bind us(not even this time, we just sat there picking out noses mostly) then do the thing you were gonna do if we hadn't even been there.

I dunknow...you lost...now you have to do a last ditched back up plan? Retreat and try again....anything....


lazy.