I just started playing this game for the first time around a week ago, and I gotta say, I HATE how your party members won't do anything but a normal attack unless you manually tell them to, or " program " a gambit for it.

I think the idea of the gambit system is a cool one. I like knowing that my party members will for sure heal me if I go below a certain percentage of HP. But why on earth is there not just an " auto-pilot " mode for your party members so they behave like, I dunno, Xenoblade party members or something? You know, how they actually used their hard earned abilities by themselves, without you having to constantly pause the game to input commands? During boss battles, I'll generally take control of everyone myself, but during normal battles, that just gets kinda boring.

I'm loving this game otherwise, but I'm just hating how forced upon me this gambit system is. Do you eventually find any gambits that are just like " yeah do anything you feel like " or something that makes this whole thing feel like less of a total chore? Or better yet, IS there an " auto-pilot " thing that I'm just totally missing here?

Well, the auto-pilot IS the gambit system. If you set it up correctly they will just act on their own right? An hour of setup to save 10 hours of switching/pausing and whatnot.

@tobbrobb: But I'm too stupid and lazy for that!

Looks like I should probably get to unlocking more gambit slots then.

Wait what.

Aren't gambits the thing that lets you program the AI for your characters? That system was dope! All kinds of if/then shit going on!

@steadyingmeat: You could always just get good weapons and just have them rely completely on physical damage and some healing gambits. With a little overleveling that should be fine for mostly any fight, except some bosses.

I never liked the gambits and manually controlled everything, constantly switching between characters.

I thought the idea was cool and it seemed rather robust. I just never liked it.

What? No! I loved the gambit system. I tweaked those fuckers for hours! I can't imagine how tedious FFXII would be manually controlling everybody...

Funnily enough, when I was playing through Xenoblade, I remember wishing that the combat was more like FFXII (though I really do love [almost] everything else about that game.)

@fattony12000: what you said - I love the gambits you get later in the game where you can really finely tune what your party will do under certain circumstances - stopping them from stupidly attacking with a spell that will heal an enemy that absorbs that spell; chaining particular de-buff and spell combinations...

There was one area where there was a monster that would spawn zombies but not attack you directly, so you could program your party not to attack him but just constantly grind the mobs that he created. Leave that running for a few hours and you'd jump dozens of levels.

I bet if you look up a FAQ or walkthrough for the game it'll have some recommended gambit settings for different parts of the game to take the thinking out of it. Also, I vaguely recall there being some items you could equip that would increase the two different types of experience that you would gain from each battle which were really useful...Embroidered Tippet? Something like that? Gah, now you've made me want to go back and play this again - it was the last big game I played before I retired my PS2 and I think it might be my favourite FF.

Personally I set up base line gambits and just did the other stuff on my own.

heal if >40%

magic if flying

attack - > leader target

and then just did the important stuff myself (casting protect, haste etc.)

well for now it's a challenge, because your finding it difficult. Near the end it's easier to max out the Gambit system and then your characters are just jack of all trades with no real actual class to them. And then it's literally auto pilot right down to setting up curing status effects. So there's no real classes, just people waiting to be able to use cure which eventually everyone does.

Once you actually have more gambit slots and more options for targets and actions it's way better. I remember beating the hardest optional boss in 5 minutes without doing an action myself. Every attack he did would one hit my lvl 99 characters so I had a loop where there was always one dead, one reviving and one attacking.

What? Go into the menu and set up gambits. You shouldn't need that many of them this early in the game, so it shouldn't be too hard.

To be fair, it takes dozens of hours to unlock competent gambit commands. The ones you can get at the start are terrible.

I got into RPGs to experience high adventure, not program AI routines. Programming good AI seems like it was, I don't know, their job?

Maybe next they'll expect me to generate art assets, or manually localize it.

@brodehouse: You do it once and then go adventuring for 20 hours and then update it with your new abilities and go adventuring for another 20 hours. It takes the menu crawling out of the combat. FFXII is my favourite world to explore, partly because of the hidden optional bosses, rare enemies and bounty targets.

@brodehouse: As much as I dislike most of FF XII the gambit system is actually quite smart and fun. It allows the combat to run at a much faster pace since you're not selecting every basic attack or cure spell manually for every single character. You can use it to set up a character as a tank to distract the boss and set another up as a dedicated healer while you manually control another character to deal damage for example.

It's as shame in the original version that stuff is sold so slowly, since it makes the earlier game very tedious when you have no decent gambits.

Agreed. I recently started playing it last summer again but stopped when the big games started coming out again. I'd really like to play an HD version for Vita. It's in the top 5 of my final fantasy experiences.

@brodehouse: You could do the same thing in Dragon Age Origins.

I prefer the Gambit system to Xenoblades more hand-off approach. In Final Fantasy XII I loved tweaking my strategy in boss encounters until I found one that worked. The game was hectic but I like a more strategic approach to JRPG's as opposed to the action-heavy approach.

I personally never used Gambits in FFXII other than some of the big auto-healing ones.

Right, I should defo get back to this game. I got it at launch and still haven't finished it!

It WAS awesome!

HELL YEAH GAMBITS!

@mosespippy: @believer258: @petiew: Here are the two changes they could have made to make me enjoy gambits;

1. Give me all the tools from the start, for free. Dragon Age did this. I shouldn't have to grind gil in order to have good AI.

2. If I don't want to manually mess with it, they should have automatic builds and algorithms. Dragon Age also did this. If you don't want to build a tank AI routine, the game will do it for you.

I also have to disagree whole heartedly with "you set gambits and are good for 20 hours". Maybe after you're 80 hours into the game. 12 is the probably most difficult FF since 5, there's not a lot of room for suboptimized gambits.

You're making me angry sir. I love everything about that game. Especially the fact that I can program the characters to do the things I want them to. Figure it out and enjoy it..or DIEEEEEE. Or you might just not enjoy it. Either way :)

I guess you just weren't very good at it?

I'm about 35 hours into the game, last I checked, and I only have to go mess with Gambits during boss fights and when new enemies are introduced and it never takes very long. I also don't go shopping for Gambits often and I don't feel like I need to every half hour or so. And the game isn't all that hard. The only thing you really have to do when walking through an area you're appropriately leveled for is, well, walk. The game and the gambits you set up several hours ago should be doing the rest of the job for you.

Dragon Age Origin's automatic builds suuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. True, they give you everything from the start, but you still have to go in there and set up tactics if you want to play with any sort of finesse.

@believer258: I suppose I wasn't very good at it. It doesn't necessarily bother me because I don't put much stock in my ability to program AI. Programming AI is not what I come to RPGs or the Final Fantasy games for.

I think the best advice I can give anybody that wants to play FFXII is to get the International edition. Between the class system and giving you access to all the gambits from the outset, it really makes things a lot more fun. That and it has probably the hardest optional boss fight not only in the entire series, but probably any game I've ever played (not talking about Yiazmat either). It's really a step up from the vanilla version.

@brodehouse: I'd set mine up and they'd be OK but there were still plenty of inefficiencies. I'd have to do some light menu crawling to cast buffs, steal or remove debuffs and so on. It's just that automating the attack this target and heal this ally parts made the rest of the menu work manageable. After a while I'd be spending the entire fight in menus and that's when I know it's time to fix my gambits. It's tough to remember how long exactly it'd be before needing to adjust gambits since I haven't played it since 2007. I do remember my final play time was 296:56, so I think I got a lot of time between set ups. I also know I played it a lot longer than most people. I agree that all the gambits should be available up front rather than be purchases or loot. It's one of the biggest complaints that people have about the game, other than Vaan being a tool.

I recently started playing the game as well and my impressions so far (about 12 hours into the game) is that its okay. I feel like the only thing I have to do in general combat is move toward a fight and everything works out fine.

Compared to DA:O I feel like the gambits are easier to set up compared to tactics, but that might be because I know better what I want to use in an FF game and constantly felt lost in DA:O.

It also doesn't take very long to set up a good set of working gambits. I think the only thing that I need to nail down is priority.

The gambit options were pretty extensive from what I recall, though perhaps a bit too much so. I just couldn't really get into the game much as for the most part my only input was running the party between locations then the game just handled everything itself. Eventually it got bad enough to where on one boss fight I just walked out the room and came back several minutes later after it had won on it's own. I vaguely recall a large bomb boss as well that I fell asleep during. The game won it for me regardless.

I much preferred how it was handled in Dragon Age. Mostly because it wasn't quite as extensive and didn't really give you the means to auto-pilot everything to the extent you can in FFXII. Dragon Age actually required me to control a character and engage with it directly. There are times in FF XII with tougher fights and optional side content that requires being more hands on. But the majority that I recall once you have extensive gambits set up is simply ferrying the programmed AI around the world and watching them auto buff themselves constantly then steal from and subsequently kill everything they meet.

I was never very good at gambit programming. I should probably try again, but I don't have anything to plug my PS2's component cables into.