Active Dimension Battle (ADB)

 ADB is the official evolution of Active Time Battle (ATB). It was designed by Hiroyuki Ito, the same person who created ATB and director of FFVI, FFIX and FFXII. It was first used in Final Fantasy XII (2006) and that inspired a modified version to be used in Xenoblade Chronicles (2010).

ADB eliminates random battles as enemies are now fully visible on the field map before they are engaged in battle, this giving the player some choice of if they want to fight them or not. The battles take place on the field map and there's no separate battle maps used. There is also no event scene to transition exploration into battle like there was in Chrono Trigger. ADB makes everything completely seamless. ADB also includes the ability for the player to still have full control over the party leaders movement while currently engaged in battle.

Also, the distance between party members and enemies also influences ADB due to various spells and abilities having an Area of Effect (AoE). The addition of AoE simply means that party members and enemies need to be within a certain range of each other for their spells and abilities to hit.

Short gameplay video of ADB in FFXII: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NscE_D7OqZ0

Short gameplay video of ADB in Xenoblade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rUrk2-bVn8

ADB in Xenoblade (Save for the Poor AI) was the shitz.

It was so fun to master all the CD timings.

Couldn't you have picked a better video...

Yep, ADB in Xenoblade is what FF should have been doing this gen!

Also, sorry about the video. I tried to choose one that was short but showed battle system gameplay.

I thought it was off in ff12. an enemy would target me I would not be very close and would still get hit by their physical or magic attack. The one in xenoblade was a bit more forgiving but still its a bit annoying.

I think it is a great idea, and after seeing some of the gameplay of FF:IX ARR I got engaged and hyped, that game looks amazing.

I liked the battle system in Xenoblade, so I'd feel optimistic about it in FFXV.
But I hope the game isn't linear.

No thank you, ff12 battle system was a bore sorry.

Well, both FFXII and Xenoblade used ADB and both games were open world. It's likely that if FFXV uses ADB that it will also be open world.

I would be excited for a new Final Fantasy regardless of the battle system. ADB wasn't as bad as some people make it out to be.

Why do battle systems need brand names? The ideal battle system would be totally invisible and natural to the story of being a teenager with a sword who gains power as they kill monsters.

When we have virtual reality RPGs, combat will be actually slicing things and levelling will be literally getting better at doing so via experiencing it, instead of hit points and mana bars.