turn-based jrpgs

[Jalopes]

Are you trying to imply that I've not played a FF game that uses ATB to significant degree? Because wow, no need to resort to personal attacks or anything.

Regarding the Wait option, it's why I said

- Wait 30 seconds to do a move, wait another 30 seconds.

While having more party members means there's a shorter time between each input, you're still sitting there waiting for the next person's turn. Where in other games, turn selection is instant. They focus on systems that reward tactics/forethought/timing, rather than how long you get to wait.

Consider Grandia, which does an ATB system right. The waiting process is directly affected by what you and your enemy is doing at all times. There isn't so much 'waiting' as inputting moves from the get go, and the waiting playing out as characters move. It turns the ATB into a tactical system, rather than using it to make you wait your turn (and not much else).

Final Fantasy when it's not using the ATB? Much faster. The battle system in FFX was just superb. It even had time-based effects (Haste/Slow/Stop) function perfectly and predictably within its system. Let you know just who would be going next and when.

i'm not really implying that you haven't played them; i'm more confused as to why you think its so slow when i've personally never noticed a significant issue

The problem with "instant" turn selection is that most of the time it's done at the beginning of a turn - after that you're forced to wait for each attack to go through. This isn't a problem in games with attacking right after you choose a move, which is essentially what ATB helps accomplish. Instead of waiting for attacks, bars are filling up during them; the only waiting is in the very beginning of a battle before anyone's bar fills up. After that bars will fill up constantly - you make one move with one person, then almost instantly another person's bar will fill up. FF7 even makes the bar fill up super fast when players' limit breaks, which happens all the time.

it just amounts to a different kind of battle system - instead of making tactical decisions and seeing them play out, its more like an action game, except you use a menu system to attack. that being said strategy isn't totally eliminated, it's just required that you think on your feet a bit more than choosing the best possible move combination. i can understand not liking that because its more of a preference thing, but saying the atb is slow doesn't make sense to me because its really not

also just to clarify i'm not saying i think rpgs without atb are bad - most of my favorite jrpgs don't have them, instead opting for a timed hits kind of mechanic or something even more unique like in chrono cross, which are great. i just don't see what's so wrong with the atb because the main complaints i hear about it are never problems for me