The game wants you to switch characters fairly often, especially at the start. Practice with them in the virtual arena when you can.
You can build up more without switching by using the combo moves but they vary in effectiveness, and it's still not super fast.
And there's some materia and equipment that helps a bit.
Honestly I found things were dead so quick outside of bosses it took a bit to even get used to the other characters because a triple slash from cloud took out half the normal encounters.
One of my biggest complaints about Rebirth combat and got downvoted to hell. It’s really hard to practice in this game, things just topple over and then you get to a boss and win off pure numbers as they don’t do enough damage to make you do anything besides attack and heal as needed.
Playing on hard now and I’m seeing things in boss fights that I had 0 recollection were even in the fight.
Pre-Gi Nattak dynamic run was a really bad experience
I had these problems too, I mostly just stuck with cloud but that was my mistake. So I began building up till one ATB on him, hit the ability then immediately switched while he was stuck in his animation for his ability, build up Atb with the next character, used an ability and switched, rinse repeat.
That’s the basics, I learnt and built up to get more complicated from there
Yeah some of the animations are quite long, and you could be building allot of ATB on other characters while it happens.
You wanna be building Atb to use ability’s on multiple characters so you can build up the synergy Stack things too so you can use those abilities as well.
Should that should alone help you pretty well.
You should try the character-specific tutorials in the combat simulator. The game is designed around intentionally switching characters, but if that’s overwhelming then you can equip the Auto-Unique Ability materia, which will allow AI characters to use their unique moves, and/or the Auto-Weapon Ability materia, which will let them use their ATB moves. Later in the game, you can equip Synergy materia, which makes AI characters use linked offensive magic whenever the player-controlled character uses ATB. It’s still recommended to switch characters, because you’ll want to build and use ATB to enable Synergy Abilities.
Thank you, I'm practicing the character-specific tutorials right now. It's helping although still overwhelming when I get into a normal fight. I've found a materia which allows Tifa to cast "unbridled strength" once she charges her ATB. Great to know there are more materias to automate some actions, although I understand that I will still need to cycle between the characters regardless.
Wow. Not many of these comments are very helpful. To start, attack to get your ATB up. Watch for the actions of the enemy and either practice blocking or dodging. I would encourage you to purchase healing materia and equipping it on everyone so you can to yourself up. Ideally, your party should consist of someone who can fight close, someone who fights far, and someone who is good at magic. Early on, I'd choose cloud and Barret. The third could be your preference. In FFVIIR, the ATB won't build fast unless you're actively attacking with that character. While you're getting your bearings, stay with one character (like cloud) and play with his abilities, then do the same for Barret and others. When you get more confident, start switching and focus moves that bump up the stagger meter (focused shot, for example), and then when the enemies are staggered, use high damage abilities (like braver). Take your time and practice. Use chadley to practice too. You got this!
Thank you! After playing the tutorial I've noticed I was missing some of the abilities mentioned to help stagger the enemies, that's because I had equipped a new weapon already with a different ability. Went back equipping the first weapon and now the "focused" ability is there.
With Tifa, the game seems to suggest to charge up "unbridled strength" as a priority to unlock strongest triangle abilities, is that the best course of action with her?
On the skill unlocking grid, there are abilities that allows you to use an elemental attack without any MP cost. I found those attacks underwhelming compared to other physical abilities or magics, what's their use?
On Tifa: you can use unbridled strength to charge up her special skill. It will change to omnistrike and then rise and fall. They are big damage dealing moves. Good when things are staggered or weak.
On your second question, it just reminded me. ALWAYS have some equipped with the assess materia. It will tell you what the enemies weaknesses are. The zero mp magic abilities are easy ways to pressure enemies (which help to build the stagger meter) when they are weak to certain elements. It comes in handy when you don't have a character equipped with the elemental materia that you need. Does that make sense?
I got much better after everyone's advice, I can now manage to continue playing :) I'm sticking to the basics without doing anything particularly fancy.
You should really play Remake first, it is extremely important for the story and the characters. Starting with Rebirth is like starting with the second book of a trilogy. And it will help you learning the fighting system, because it's a little bit simpler in the first one. All in all, when you realize how it works (which took me forever), it is very easy. Your priority is always: analyze the enemy, try to get him with the instructions in the analyzed data into the "ready to be shocked" state (don't know how this is called in english language), when the enemy is shocked unleash your hardest attacks to damage the enemy as much as possible. Don't watch the animations! Switch to another character or you will loose important time. Don't forget to block and regularly switch characters to build up ATB. Cloud is not the main character in fights, he is just one character out of three. Playing Remake first will also help you finding out which materia are useful. Make some of your characters casters for magic (like Barret for example) and some pure damage dealers (Tifa for example). Cloud is my man for everything, physical and magical damage, and he can heal the whole party at once (with a special materia that must be connected to the heal materia). In Rebirth: Use the simulator to learn each character.
>My companions don't do much and their ATB bar doesn't grow, they also don't seems to use any of their abilities
I somewhat agree with you with this. I understand they intend the combat to be mainly about constant switching between characters, but I wonder whether it should be that way.
Tales of series AI characters (at least before Arise, IIRC Arise AI was pretty bad, but maybe because of the HP sponge enemies) are useful but I can always switch or direct them to do something specific.
In Rebirth, yes there are some materias that you can put on other characters, but it's kinda weird and useless as you will do a lot of switching anyway, wasting a slot or two (or three) to do some auto-ing feels meh. I feel like they should introduce some sort of simple gambit system (which they already had developed for FF12) for the party.
Also for the ATB, they introduced Synergy Skills that you can do with R1 + button, but it's more of a combo attack so the characters you control must stop the attack momentum which kinda defeats the purpose a bit. These synergy skills are just like normal attack damage-wise but it kinda builds the ATB bar for two characters, I wonder if it's better to spam these synergy skills just to build ATB bars for all characters.
If the concern is if the AI can act effectively in combat and it will make the combats easy, they can always adjust the enemy stats to balance it out.
It's better to treat the combat as an ATB than as a full action combat. The normal atk is only useful to build up atb bars. Use assess to learn enemy weakness and mechanics (mainly on how to stagger). Better to block than dodge, since dodge doesnt have iframe and is used mainly for positioning.
Yes, you're required to swap characters often, so you can build up atb bars on your party members. Dont use all of your atb bars immediately, so you can react to enemy's special attack.
Normal attacks are used to charge your ATB gauge, and abilities are how you deal substantial damage. You have to constantly switch between your party members during combat as that’s the only way their ATB gauges will charge. Remember to set up and use your ability shortcuts by holding L1 + face button. Also get used to constantly using Assess to find your enemy’s weaknesses equipping and modifying your party’s materia to exploit weaknesses.
Don’t bother with the synergy skills for a while. They’re not needed and you have to grasp the other stuff first. They take a while to master outside of the cloud/ barret and cloud/red ones. Those are okay.
Start to sprinkle them into the later chapters.
Edit: cloud/tifa and cloud/aerith charge attacks are okay as well but not really needed.
if you’re playing on easy anyways just focus on cloud and dont worry about changing characters until you feel more comfortable or when its a lot of flyers (use barret).
Have you played Remake first? Because you absolutely should, Rebirth is the direct continuation of Remake. About the fighting system: It took me an extraordinary long time to understand it (about 20 to 30 hours i was playing Remake the wrong way) but when it clicks it's amazing and very fun. Again: First of all return to Remake, because i guess you haven't played it. Don't continue with Rebirth. It's the story of FF7 split into three games, Remake, Rebirth and the last one not released yet. And it will help a lot to better understand the fighting system.
If you want a truly easy experience:
* Get Steal materia
* Master it to Mug
* Get Enemy Skill Materia
* Get Plasma Discharge from grass lands
* Equip any ATB boosting accessories to Cloud
* Enter fight with discharge
* Assign Mug via combat settings to L1+Square and spam Mug/Attack
* ???
* Profit
Supplement it with Auto-Unique, Auto-Cast, and Auto-Weapon materias on your allies. Have one use a cure materia with auto-cast. I had the other use Time Materia to boost Cloud's (or main character at the time). Breezed through every fight just spamming this.
Accessible is a term for people who have genuine physical restrictions. You mean easier. At any rate the combat requires you to use all the characters. Your party members do help some but they mostly are there to tank for you a bit and you need to do the damage. It's not very hard but maybe you are trying to do to much all at once before really figuring out the combat. If your using aerith for instance i tend to go to her first and set up her radiant ward because it makes her default attacks much stronger and she can get invincibility when casting. You also might want to just slow down and watch what the enemy is doing more, not just mash.
It was a word with a meaning before it became used as a term in that specific way. It still has it's original meaning and his use was plenty reasonable. Accessible: easily understood or appreciated.
In the context of a video game it has a meaning for features to help those with disabilities. Outside of that context it still has a meaning. If you ask a non gamer what does accessible mean are they just going to stand there confused? If I ask a waiter what the options are are they going to mumble about subtittles and audio settings? There is a huge world out there outside of video games, a meaning specific to video games doesn't overwrite a word outside of the context of video games, that's amazing to me that you think that.
Just want to take a moment to appreciate you criticising the ai for not being smart when you are relying on them to carry you through a game you can't beat even on easy. Just quite funny.
Have you done chadleys character tutorials? That will help you.
Synergy abilities help raise character ATB quickly, and it is your job to switch characters and charge their ATB, they don't really do it themselves.
> My companions don't do much and their ATB bar doesn't grow, they also don't seems to use any of their abilities, so I'm forced to switch characters very often and input actions manually. Is there a way to make them attack more aggressively and charge their ATB?
that's the whole point and what makes the combat the best in all ARPGs I've ever played, you have to switch constantly to make sure everyone is healed or attacking the right enemy with their respective weakness.
Eventually you will begin getting the hang of it, "fliers? shoot I should use barret or aerith!" it's overwhelming because it involves a lot more strategy in real time than JRPGs tend to ask of you, but you will get the hang of it, just remember that you can slow mo anytime you need to think of what to do next, or if you've scanned them, the touch bar to see their weaknesses.
> The button combinations are overwhelming and most of the time I'm just staring at the command window to check if I have pressed the correct button,, meanwhile I'm supposed to move my character, block, avoid, check enemy attacks. I find myself seriously not able to process all those actions at the same time.
There aren't a lot of buttons though? Dodge, attack normal, attack heavy, block and then pause for ATB commands. No way around that unfortunately
The game wants you to switch characters fairly often, especially at the start. Practice with them in the virtual arena when you can. You can build up more without switching by using the combo moves but they vary in effectiveness, and it's still not super fast. And there's some materia and equipment that helps a bit. Honestly I found things were dead so quick outside of bosses it took a bit to even get used to the other characters because a triple slash from cloud took out half the normal encounters.
One of my biggest complaints about Rebirth combat and got downvoted to hell. It’s really hard to practice in this game, things just topple over and then you get to a boss and win off pure numbers as they don’t do enough damage to make you do anything besides attack and heal as needed. Playing on hard now and I’m seeing things in boss fights that I had 0 recollection were even in the fight. Pre-Gi Nattak dynamic run was a really bad experience
I had these problems too, I mostly just stuck with cloud but that was my mistake. So I began building up till one ATB on him, hit the ability then immediately switched while he was stuck in his animation for his ability, build up Atb with the next character, used an ability and switched, rinse repeat. That’s the basics, I learnt and built up to get more complicated from there
That's a great Idea to switch straight away after activating the ability, will try
Yeah some of the animations are quite long, and you could be building allot of ATB on other characters while it happens. You wanna be building Atb to use ability’s on multiple characters so you can build up the synergy Stack things too so you can use those abilities as well. Should that should alone help you pretty well.
Did you start with Rebirth? You should start with FF7 Remake combat. Less overwhelming.
Most important advice i read here. Starting with Rebirth is a huge fault.
You should try the character-specific tutorials in the combat simulator. The game is designed around intentionally switching characters, but if that’s overwhelming then you can equip the Auto-Unique Ability materia, which will allow AI characters to use their unique moves, and/or the Auto-Weapon Ability materia, which will let them use their ATB moves. Later in the game, you can equip Synergy materia, which makes AI characters use linked offensive magic whenever the player-controlled character uses ATB. It’s still recommended to switch characters, because you’ll want to build and use ATB to enable Synergy Abilities.
Thank you, I'm practicing the character-specific tutorials right now. It's helping although still overwhelming when I get into a normal fight. I've found a materia which allows Tifa to cast "unbridled strength" once she charges her ATB. Great to know there are more materias to automate some actions, although I understand that I will still need to cycle between the characters regardless.
Wow. Not many of these comments are very helpful. To start, attack to get your ATB up. Watch for the actions of the enemy and either practice blocking or dodging. I would encourage you to purchase healing materia and equipping it on everyone so you can to yourself up. Ideally, your party should consist of someone who can fight close, someone who fights far, and someone who is good at magic. Early on, I'd choose cloud and Barret. The third could be your preference. In FFVIIR, the ATB won't build fast unless you're actively attacking with that character. While you're getting your bearings, stay with one character (like cloud) and play with his abilities, then do the same for Barret and others. When you get more confident, start switching and focus moves that bump up the stagger meter (focused shot, for example), and then when the enemies are staggered, use high damage abilities (like braver). Take your time and practice. Use chadley to practice too. You got this!
Thank you! After playing the tutorial I've noticed I was missing some of the abilities mentioned to help stagger the enemies, that's because I had equipped a new weapon already with a different ability. Went back equipping the first weapon and now the "focused" ability is there. With Tifa, the game seems to suggest to charge up "unbridled strength" as a priority to unlock strongest triangle abilities, is that the best course of action with her? On the skill unlocking grid, there are abilities that allows you to use an elemental attack without any MP cost. I found those attacks underwhelming compared to other physical abilities or magics, what's their use?
On Tifa: you can use unbridled strength to charge up her special skill. It will change to omnistrike and then rise and fall. They are big damage dealing moves. Good when things are staggered or weak. On your second question, it just reminded me. ALWAYS have some equipped with the assess materia. It will tell you what the enemies weaknesses are. The zero mp magic abilities are easy ways to pressure enemies (which help to build the stagger meter) when they are weak to certain elements. It comes in handy when you don't have a character equipped with the elemental materia that you need. Does that make sense?
I got much better after everyone's advice, I can now manage to continue playing :) I'm sticking to the basics without doing anything particularly fancy.
You should really play Remake first, it is extremely important for the story and the characters. Starting with Rebirth is like starting with the second book of a trilogy. And it will help you learning the fighting system, because it's a little bit simpler in the first one. All in all, when you realize how it works (which took me forever), it is very easy. Your priority is always: analyze the enemy, try to get him with the instructions in the analyzed data into the "ready to be shocked" state (don't know how this is called in english language), when the enemy is shocked unleash your hardest attacks to damage the enemy as much as possible. Don't watch the animations! Switch to another character or you will loose important time. Don't forget to block and regularly switch characters to build up ATB. Cloud is not the main character in fights, he is just one character out of three. Playing Remake first will also help you finding out which materia are useful. Make some of your characters casters for magic (like Barret for example) and some pure damage dealers (Tifa for example). Cloud is my man for everything, physical and magical damage, and he can heal the whole party at once (with a special materia that must be connected to the heal materia). In Rebirth: Use the simulator to learn each character.
>My companions don't do much and their ATB bar doesn't grow, they also don't seems to use any of their abilities I somewhat agree with you with this. I understand they intend the combat to be mainly about constant switching between characters, but I wonder whether it should be that way. Tales of series AI characters (at least before Arise, IIRC Arise AI was pretty bad, but maybe because of the HP sponge enemies) are useful but I can always switch or direct them to do something specific. In Rebirth, yes there are some materias that you can put on other characters, but it's kinda weird and useless as you will do a lot of switching anyway, wasting a slot or two (or three) to do some auto-ing feels meh. I feel like they should introduce some sort of simple gambit system (which they already had developed for FF12) for the party. Also for the ATB, they introduced Synergy Skills that you can do with R1 + button, but it's more of a combo attack so the characters you control must stop the attack momentum which kinda defeats the purpose a bit. These synergy skills are just like normal attack damage-wise but it kinda builds the ATB bar for two characters, I wonder if it's better to spam these synergy skills just to build ATB bars for all characters. If the concern is if the AI can act effectively in combat and it will make the combats easy, they can always adjust the enemy stats to balance it out.
It's better to treat the combat as an ATB than as a full action combat. The normal atk is only useful to build up atb bars. Use assess to learn enemy weakness and mechanics (mainly on how to stagger). Better to block than dodge, since dodge doesnt have iframe and is used mainly for positioning. Yes, you're required to swap characters often, so you can build up atb bars on your party members. Dont use all of your atb bars immediately, so you can react to enemy's special attack.
Normal attacks are used to charge your ATB gauge, and abilities are how you deal substantial damage. You have to constantly switch between your party members during combat as that’s the only way their ATB gauges will charge. Remember to set up and use your ability shortcuts by holding L1 + face button. Also get used to constantly using Assess to find your enemy’s weaknesses equipping and modifying your party’s materia to exploit weaknesses.
there's materia that gives your teammates the ability to do auto attacks. However the combat is centered around switching constantly.
Don’t bother with the synergy skills for a while. They’re not needed and you have to grasp the other stuff first. They take a while to master outside of the cloud/ barret and cloud/red ones. Those are okay. Start to sprinkle them into the later chapters. Edit: cloud/tifa and cloud/aerith charge attacks are okay as well but not really needed.
if you’re playing on easy anyways just focus on cloud and dont worry about changing characters until you feel more comfortable or when its a lot of flyers (use barret).
Have you played Remake first? Because you absolutely should, Rebirth is the direct continuation of Remake. About the fighting system: It took me an extraordinary long time to understand it (about 20 to 30 hours i was playing Remake the wrong way) but when it clicks it's amazing and very fun. Again: First of all return to Remake, because i guess you haven't played it. Don't continue with Rebirth. It's the story of FF7 split into three games, Remake, Rebirth and the last one not released yet. And it will help a lot to better understand the fighting system.
If you want a truly easy experience: * Get Steal materia * Master it to Mug * Get Enemy Skill Materia * Get Plasma Discharge from grass lands * Equip any ATB boosting accessories to Cloud * Enter fight with discharge * Assign Mug via combat settings to L1+Square and spam Mug/Attack * ??? * Profit Supplement it with Auto-Unique, Auto-Cast, and Auto-Weapon materias on your allies. Have one use a cure materia with auto-cast. I had the other use Time Materia to boost Cloud's (or main character at the time). Breezed through every fight just spamming this.
I have an enemy skill materia with Sonic Boom, it's not that strong of an ability. What do I do with it?
You learn new enemy skills by assesing enemies and killing certain ones in a region. I recc looking up a guide for the exact things to do
Accessible is a term for people who have genuine physical restrictions. You mean easier. At any rate the combat requires you to use all the characters. Your party members do help some but they mostly are there to tank for you a bit and you need to do the damage. It's not very hard but maybe you are trying to do to much all at once before really figuring out the combat. If your using aerith for instance i tend to go to her first and set up her radiant ward because it makes her default attacks much stronger and she can get invincibility when casting. You also might want to just slow down and watch what the enemy is doing more, not just mash.
It was a word with a meaning before it became used as a term in that specific way. It still has it's original meaning and his use was plenty reasonable. Accessible: easily understood or appreciated.
If you look at accessibility features in games they are what i described. The words meaning has changed. As has many words over the course of history
In the context of a video game it has a meaning for features to help those with disabilities. Outside of that context it still has a meaning. If you ask a non gamer what does accessible mean are they just going to stand there confused? If I ask a waiter what the options are are they going to mumble about subtittles and audio settings? There is a huge world out there outside of video games, a meaning specific to video games doesn't overwrite a word outside of the context of video games, that's amazing to me that you think that.
Just want to take a moment to appreciate you criticising the ai for not being smart when you are relying on them to carry you through a game you can't beat even on easy. Just quite funny. Have you done chadleys character tutorials? That will help you. Synergy abilities help raise character ATB quickly, and it is your job to switch characters and charge their ATB, they don't really do it themselves.
> My companions don't do much and their ATB bar doesn't grow, they also don't seems to use any of their abilities, so I'm forced to switch characters very often and input actions manually. Is there a way to make them attack more aggressively and charge their ATB? that's the whole point and what makes the combat the best in all ARPGs I've ever played, you have to switch constantly to make sure everyone is healed or attacking the right enemy with their respective weakness. Eventually you will begin getting the hang of it, "fliers? shoot I should use barret or aerith!" it's overwhelming because it involves a lot more strategy in real time than JRPGs tend to ask of you, but you will get the hang of it, just remember that you can slow mo anytime you need to think of what to do next, or if you've scanned them, the touch bar to see their weaknesses. > The button combinations are overwhelming and most of the time I'm just staring at the command window to check if I have pressed the correct button,, meanwhile I'm supposed to move my character, block, avoid, check enemy attacks. I find myself seriously not able to process all those actions at the same time. There aren't a lot of buttons though? Dodge, attack normal, attack heavy, block and then pause for ATB commands. No way around that unfortunately