No, not really. I enjoy the system in no small part because my battles don't get tedious. That's the thing with FFXIII's combat: skill + engagement = quick, exciting battles; basic strategies + spam X = repetitive, tedious, boring battles.
Are battles in XIII significantly more difficult than in previous games?
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i know, but the fact that specific attacks don't matter the majority of the time, its just how you gather momentum and when you stagger and several other aspects.
it gets tedious because the attacks are limited, and vastly controlled by paradigms over anything else. i got sick of the game, and it was becoming a breeze or rather still air. that i quit around chapter 11 or 12 on gameplay.
it doesn't taking much skill until you get to other areas. but it gets tedious because the game doesn't express the need or way to find specific momentum. its just a game that failed to get balanced, and if people are saying its tedious, its for a good reason.
Actually, the game is quite well balanced. It's balanced around the idea that, as you get deeper into the game, you will learn to take better advantage of the numerous combos in the battle system.
People who find it tedious are usually those who don't learn anything beyond the most basic strategies. Battles become repetitive because the same strategies are being used every time, instead of adapting and choosing different strategies for different battle conditions. Battles become lengthy because the basic strategies are not very efficient for most fights, and the efficiency gap between basic strategies, intermediate strategies, and advanced strategies grows more pronounced at the higher levels of the Crystarium.
Repetitive, lengthy battles are tedious and boring, and there are reasons why some people experience the battle system this way, but the reasons have at least as much to do with psychology and motivation as anything intrinsic to the battle system itself.
its not balanced in the way you're describing it. sure its balanced in a form that theres no glitches, and the whole thing "works". but not in the sense that it grabs everyone. halfway explaining through the process and constant trial and error is what it leads with FF13. I mean, you need a hefty wide screen tv to notice the difference in attacks when u see the health bar and find a way to chain your attacks properly (something FF13 explained incredibly casually)
And the same, thats what i'm saying is unbalance, it really doesn't give the extra effort to learn this type of strategy early on and figure it out on your own because it wasn't highlighted. you had to be incredibly avid listener from the beginning and grasp as if it was the key element you needed not wanted. but overall, these feel tedious even with planning ahead.
and again, the idea is all based on one sole tiny aspect that doesn't justify the entire game, and thats rank system. you get rare items if you beat in 5 stars (not as hard as everyone makes it out, you get the hang of gathering momentum once u get through the junk yard).
The problem with XIII is that the game didn't focus on vitality. (meaning planning ahead so you would survive throughout the dungeon or in this case, pathway) it focused on option to gain more reward (if you can call it that. I've gotten 5 stars several times, most of the times i didn't get anything i really wanted). So that was the difference, the drive to do it had to be planted long before even playing the game.
So its what you make it, but its also what you care most. rare items? Hardly ever important in FF when it came to monsters dropping. thats why its inbalance, the choice of using all that was more of an option than a driving force in FF13. It didn't really make it so you would say "wow. i really need 5 stars on this monster so i can gain whatever it is that i want" or there weren't battles that made you think "wow these monsters are tough, i better improve my strategy so that i can survive the next one"
Its incredibly casual, i gave up on the gameplay aspect near the end, and that's still when it opened up to more paths (not open world). its unique, just not refined. This is also why Final Fantasy: All the bravest failed, even when they switched it to freenium, because the goal is to collect FF sprites, but the gameplay was all random swiping. sure, you could use strategy and swipe only where its needed, but swiping the whole screen just saves more time. the same principle applies
you also have to consider that the lack of options between paradigms and only being able to control one character manually was a complete turn off for older fans, FF13 tried too many things too fast. Its not something that you would expect in a more tactical RPG.
maybe when it comes to the bosses (not really for me) you would have to or have the luxury of choosing a more advance strategy, but its really just an option. the fact is all that is designed of having the option of beating a monster.
refining it would be if there was timed battles amongst rare monsters not just on the Eidolons so that the motivation would be at a more basic level. This also would mean replayability if rare monsters. Something that could make you care about ranking or just beating them and having them in your bestiary.
EDIT:
whats so great about explaining constantly about how "great" ff13's gameplay was if it didn't even do a great well "selling" these aspects or making the common FF fan care about them.
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I found FFXIII to be very easy. The only time I died was when I fought the Eidolons, and then I only lost once or twice. The thing that may have made it more difficult was probably not having any control over the other two characters. However, that didn't make any difference, or at least no difference to me. I didn't have any incredibly long battles against normal enemies either. I did have a couple of long battles against bosses. The second to last boss battle, the one before the very easy one, took me a very long time. But that's because I'm fairly conservative in boss battles. I was happy to have only one attacker when whatshisface started doing all those attacks that more or less kill your whole party.
I found FFXIII's difficulty to be about on par with other games in the series. I think SE could have produced a better game if they had actually made it more difficult (bosses with more HP that do more damage and have more aggressive A.I.). This would have stressed the paradigm system more and forced the player to discover unique strategies to defeat each boss. I love XIII's battle system, but I left the experience feeling as though more could have been done with it.
i would've preffered this actualy. it felt too easy on me, and i wasn't even trying....
Ultimaja
Banned
The Barthandelus battles are tough, quite a few other bosses are tough, there are plenty of monsters to avoid.
Whoever says the game was outright 'easy' is just being plain dishonest. And I don't want to hear the ol' 'you did it wrong' or something, I over mastered XIII, and nobody can tell me anything about it. And I'm tired of people acting like the game is a catwalk.
I don't know why this game is so hated on that people feel the need to basically make up things for it to look bad. I've never seen this with, well, any game in my life. Even the actual bad ones.
Whoever says the game was outright 'easy' is just being plain dishonest. And I don't want to hear the ol' 'you did it wrong' or something, I over mastered XIII, and nobody can tell me anything about it. And I'm tired of people acting like the game is a catwalk.
I don't know why this game is so hated on that people feel the need to basically make up things for it to look bad. I've never seen this with, well, any game in my life. Even the actual bad ones.
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The fact you have little to no control so, ya. Not ideal is it? Stupid game 
Being hard doesn't make the game look good, not when it's because the game doesn't let you level up your characters when you want to or how you want to.
Barthandelus was just really tedious, rather than hard. Also, its really really REALLY difficult to tell if you're winning or not so that also plays in the roel of actually playing the game extra catious despite the fact that you constantly switch paradigms.
But even then, Barthandelus isn't a "bad" boss, i really didn't care. but its not like the game is hated for its boss. although apparently you can kill the final boss with death.
if you don't understand why people hate this game, you clearly never played a final fantasy game in your life.
Ultimaja
Banned
Well if memory served you better then your 'issue' with the game, you'd realize that most FFs don't really give you much freedom in leveling up either.
Perhaps you thought FFXIII was an Elder Scrolls installment?
This is a perfect example of why I just don't get criticisms toward XIII. What's being used in comparison, the Holy Game of Gods?
Umm...yeah they do. What other FF game caps your levels? None that I've played. If you want to spent hours levelling before a boss battle in other FF games, you can, in XIII that does you no good, because the game won't let your characters get stronger until the game wants them to. What are these 'most' other Final Fantasy games that do that too?
Ultimaja
Banned
The caps never make the game hard. Ever. It just doesn't make the game easy for whoever basically wants to cheat it, and it's only during the first half of the game that the caps are even there- when the game is more on the story.
You don't have a problem with FF's whose enemies outright level up beside you though. Makes no sense to me.
So if an enemy is difficult, and your characters cannot level up any more in order to be stronger to fight it, that isn't the game making it harder? That's actually exactly what it is. Exactly. In what world is levelling up your characters considered cheating? It's what you do in games, you level up to fight harder and harder enemies. The more you develop your characters, the easier battles will be. It's how games work. It's why enemies get harder the further into the game you get.
So since you never answered before, what are these 'most' Final Fantasies you spoke of that don't give you any freedom when it comes to levelling up?
Also btw, in XIII the strength of your characters is based on only two things: your level and your equipment. In FFVIII (where enemies level up with you) your strength is determined by your level, your equipment and also your junctions. So you can still make your characters stronger than the enemies if you want to grind. In XIII you can't. You have no choice at all.
Ultimaja
Banned
Why do you think they add things like balanced leveling to FF? It's to ensure that people don't spoil their own fun and spend too much time grinding then actually enjoying the game.
If you have no beef with, let's say, FFVIII, then you should have absolutely zero here.
I didn't know you were speaking of capping. You said 'how they level up', which implies some modification to their leveling.
If someone buys a game, they should have the freedom to play it how they like to play it. That's just what I think. Plus it means you can play through the game differently on multiple playthroughs. The difference between XIII and VIII I already explained. In FFVIII you can still grind to make your characters stronger however much you want, you have freedom to make them as strong as you want whenever you want. In XIII you don't have that option. You have no options actually, you have no choice in what roles the characters can perform, or how strong they can be.
I said "the game doesn't let you level up your characters when you want to or how you want to" you said most other Final Fantasies don't give you freedom either. I've asked which Final Fantasies you are talking about, since all the ones I've played have allowed you to train to become stronger at any point in the game.
Ultimaja
Banned
The roles in FFXIII are not bad. Lightning is a ravager, Hope is a healer, and so on. They all have primary and secondary roles. This is not too different then other FF's such as IX.
The only reason leveling is even in VIII is to differentiate your characters from substantially weaker foes. It's a false sense of progression, and one of my issues with it. And hitting level 100 with enemies still formidable isn't exactly superior to whatever beef one may have to XIII's caps.
I never said the roles were bad. The lack of choice is what's bad, and I don't mind lack of choice in some aspects of a game, but in FFXIII every single aspect of the game is completely outside the players control.
Again - in FFVIII you have junctioning to make your characters stronger than enemies. In FFXIII you only have levels. That is the difference. In FFVIII if you want to you can be far stronger than every enemy in the game if you put in the hours buffing up your characters. In FFXIII you do not have any options like that, the game tells you how your characters are going to level up, and when they are going to level up, and levelling up is the only way for your characters to be stronger than their enemies.
You still haven't told me what all these 'most' Final Fantasy games that give you little freedom when it comes to levelling are. Could it be because the fact is FFXIII is the first to stop you having choice when it comes to levelling?
I'm going to say right now, FF13's leveling up system is the most ridiculous thing that has come out of Final Fantasy. it gives players the illusion that you are choosing the path of how you level up, and sometimes (but not most) it affects the way you play. But rarely does it impede on your gameplay for bad level up decisions.
the idea of choosing which little perk you get when you level doesn't really matter, in the end your strategy is still switching through paradigms and pressing X (not even caring about. As long as you used all your CP, it didn't matter what choice you made.
Also in the end the reward is still just one eidolon per character. intergrating just one eidolon was just one of the many restrictions. Paradigms mean NOTHING.
the idea of choosing which little perk you get when you level doesn't really matter, in the end your strategy is still switching through paradigms and pressing X (not even caring about. As long as you used all your CP, it didn't matter what choice you made.
Also in the end the reward is still just one eidolon per character. intergrating just one eidolon was just one of the many restrictions. Paradigms mean NOTHING.