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
