What status effects do you think could use more effects?

[CWells]

What kind of extra effects do you add to some of the plain status ailments? How do you like to adjust states?

I think certain states like "Hide" seem underdeveloped. If all it does is reduce the chance of an enemy targeting you when in a party, it's pretty much useless when fighting solo. I don't like states that can break that easily, so I decided to make "hide" really do what it says. Not only will targeting be reduced but I add evasion and magic evasion to the state. Usually about 85%, Now you're hiding.

Sleep? All defenses are reduced to 0.

What states to you feel underdeveloped?

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

Poison.

Ppl who are poisoned don't usually just lose health or stamina. Poisons can affect the nervous system, neuro system, and cardiovascular system.

So to me, poison should lower targeting rate, lower parameters, or any other number of creative disabling effects. But HP loss is just so... Blah.

 

[Probotector 200X]

Sleep lowers your defense to 0? What, does your armor disappear? I'd go with speed and evade to 0, with a defense penalty, but not down to 0. It could lower your critical evasion too.

Also, RPG poison is kinda funny. I...don't think real-life poison works that way. It's more like "Doom" or "Death Sentence" probably. But with a stat penalty, and maybe taking certain actions makes it go faster, like exerting yourself. But, real-life poison sucks. And fantasy doesn't need to be super accurate, so...I tend to stick with "RPG Poison", but I still make it lower a stat or two.

I also tend to make confuse lower your accuracy and evade.

One other alternative I like is making more dangerous versions of certain states. Like normal Poison does damage over time. Deadly Poison does massive damage over time and lowers your defense. Hallucinogenic Poison does damage over time and has the same effect as confusion. Irradiated spider venom raises your strength, gives you a sixth sense to avoid danger, and lets you climb walls (wait...)

 

[Deep Thought]

Sleep: That's a toughie. I'd cut defenses in half instead of reducing them to 0. Alternatively, you could make another state called "Drowsy" that reduces speed and accuracy, then set up a common event so "Drowsy" is always inflicted for a few turns after "Sleep" wears off.

Poison: My personal favorite! The trick is to give different poisons different effects. Neurotoxins, hemotoxins, cardiotoxins, cytotoxins, and the rest of the venomous spice rack all have different effects. Look at the "Snake venom" Wikipedia article for a basic overview. Granted, you'll need separate states for each, but that's part of the fun, isn't it? You should also make different antidotes for each, with a universal antidote toward the end of the game.

I'm disappointed that "Burn" isn't a default condition in XP. Slip damage and DEF reductions are how I do it. I especially like to add convection to my maps; if you're in a hot area, you'll automatically get burned unless you have special armor.

In short, think less like an RPG designer and more like a doctor. Look up some potential medical hazards, see what they do, then try to translate that stuff to the game mechanics.

 

[CWells]

I look at it like this: You're asleep. You're defenseless. So while you are asleep, I lower the defense parameter to 0. Now this isn't the same as providing any extra boost to incoming damage. So you're not going to be hit or hit with say 300% more force. You're just getting a clean shot in that wont be muffled by defense.

And it isn't quite as high as you might think it is. It all would depend on your formula.

I tested this effect out once, and the increase in damage was only about 140 points, given the stat of my character at the time.

 

[omen613]

Berserk...you auto attack foes and have no control of your character...I like to make berserk also make you immune to most other status debuffs as well...bind sleep stun...etc. This makes it more appealing to players to use it strategically against enemies that use many debuffs while still being used as another means of silence...preventing mage characters from casting magic.

Poisons that inflict blind paralyze silence are fun...

Hide....the thief backstab gimmick comes to mind.... thief uses hide making foes less likely to hit him...next turn thief can use backstab (can only be used while hide is active) doing a 100% critical hit to the enemy and then removes hide from the thief.

They say when one of your 5 senses is removed...the other senses are enhanced...

Blind can lower accuracy but enhance evasion....

Confusion can enhance defense...

Sleep can lower evasion to 0....but you regenerate HP and MP each turn... maybe remove some status debuffs? Your resting...

When burned....ice and water magics heal you or remove the burn completely

When your paralyzed....you rage quit

just some ideas

 

[kerbonklin]

*Random ideas*

Ice stuff causes silence

Fire stuff causing confusion

Ground stuff causes slow

Thunder stuff causes blind

 

[Tai_MT]

Burn:  Well.... depends on how you've leveled it up in my game.  Keep in mind, all my status effects can be "leveled up" and/or "customized" to an extent.  Initial burn damage is just 5% damage every turn with 5% TP loss every turn.  It can be increased to drop defense (by 20%) or last longer (it initially lasts 5 turns, it can be increased to 10).  After that, it can be increased to drop fire resistance (by 50%) or drop attack power (by 20%).  At the very end you can choose from "Burn damage up" (increases to 10% instead of 5%) or from "burn chance up", which typically takes it from 45% to 70%.  Keep in mind, these are inflicted via a Fire skill and I have no just straight up "inflict burn" spell.  These are all linked to the Fire skills.

Stun is the same as my burn.  It changes depending on what you did with it.  It's linked to the Lightning skills.  Stun initially drops evade to 0 (for a limited time).  It can also be used to drop speed with one upgrade.  With another, it can increase weakness to Lightning by 50%.  Stun can also be used to drop defense.  It can last longer, have a higher chance to hit, etcetera.

Paralyze keeps someone from acting at all.  It also drains your MP.  It's typically linked to my Nature spells.  It does variations on all the above...

Yeah, listing all of these is going to be a huge pain in the butt.  This is just a sample with "burn" being the best example at the moment, since I got a bit lazy about listing all the features of everything after that.  You get the gist.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I look at it like this: You're asleep. You're defenseless. So while you are asleep, I lower the defense parameter to 0. Now this isn't the same as providing any extra boost to incoming damage. So you're not going to be hit or hit with say 300% more force. You're just getting a clean shot in that wont be muffled by defense.

And it isn't quite as high as you might think it is. It all would depend on your formula.

I tested this effect out once, and the increase in damage was only about 140 points, given the stat of my character at the time.

Sleep changing defense to zero is heavily influenced by how your combat system works. The normal a.atk - b.def style damage formula would cause INCREDIBLE amounts of damage to be dealt to someone. If defense is simply a percentile scalar, however, it would possibly not be that big of a difference.

 

[Probotector 200X]

omen613's post reminded of something I thought of before.

Different characters get inflicted with different states!!

Say you have a Burn state. Maybe by default, it causes damage over time, and lowers defense (I've seen this several times actually)

But, you have a character who halves fire! Shouldn't burn hurt them less? Well, make a variant of Burn that has half as much slip damage, less defense penalty, and maybe even lasts less time too.

One character absorbs fire, So their version of Burn heals them over time, and boosts their defense!

So, an attack like Flamethrower adds Burn, Half-Burn, and Heal-Burn. But most characters are immune to half-burn and heal-burn, while the character who gets Half-Burn is immune to the other two...and the Heal-Burn character is immune to the other two.

I don't think I ever got around to that though. I initially got the idea from having a lazy character, who'd sleep longer than the others. I think some game actually does that. Probably without the need to make separate states.

 

[omen613]

I've been a fan of Probotector's idea...especially for bosses and poisons... you dont want a poison taking out such a large chunk of HP of your boss you sent so much time on designing... so make your poisons give two different statuses one is normal poison and one is boss poison which takes a much smaller % of HP per turn...same with blind. Maybe normal blind is like 60% acc down....but boss blind is 30% down... this makes the status effects still help a lot...without being over powered...and without just making all bosses immune to status effects....which is very very lame IMO.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Just remember that the game is for the players, not the designer. The output of your hard work in making that boss is so it's fun to fight. That may mean you want to change how things effect it, but remember enjoyment is the goal, not having your boss crush people.

 

[Clord]

Defense stat in many RPG games doesn't imply if the characters are wearing an armor other than increasing it further. I'm speaking about games where you can remove all armor and still have defense sat above zero. So it is fine if sleep spell lowers the defense stat.

 

[Probotector 200X]

I like the idea of "states being weaker on bosses"! It's basically win-win.

Bosses being immune to status effects, boring, and often makes a character or two useless against them.

Bosses being completely vulnerable to status effects, fun, but too easy, completely shutting down the boss and their strategy.

Also, bosses being vulnerable to status effects but with a REALLY low chance to work is too much of a gamble.

The weaker versions of states for bosses doesn't make bosses boring and immune to everything, while not making them total jokes!

 

[Tai_MT]

I like the idea of "states being weaker on bosses"! It's basically win-win.

Bosses being immune to status effects, boring, and often makes a character or two useless against them.

Bosses being completely vulnerable to status effects, fun, but too easy, completely shutting down the boss and their strategy.

Also, bosses being vulnerable to status effects but with a REALLY low chance to work is too much of a gamble.

The weaker versions of states for bosses doesn't make bosses boring and immune to everything, while not making them total jokes!

I prefer a different method to this as, to me, it seems to make the status effects equally useless if they do less damage on a boss than they would on a normal enemy.  The entire point of most status effects is to be used on enemies that are going to be around for more than 3 turns.  If you have a separate but weaker status effect for bosses, then you're basically telling the players not to bother with the status effect on them at all (unless it's something like debuffing a stat or casting silence/reflect).

I've taken a MUCH different approach.  My bosses have status RESISTANCES.  There are a few that have absolute immunities, but mostly, it's resistances.  I know, that seems cliché, but here's basically what I did:

Basic status effects have something from 45% to 55% chance of working against a normal enemy without any kind of weaknesses or resistances.  Since my status effects can be "leveled up" over time and as the player progresses, I'm leaving the strategy up to individual tastes.  What this does is...  It allows you to decide if you want to take out bosses or other enemies with status effects instead of brute force.  So, one of the upgrades on another of my status effects might get a boost of 25% to 30% boost in chance of working.  If a boss has a resistance to that particular effect (let's say he's got a 50% resistance to it), then with that boost, you've got a much higher chance of getting that effect on the boss.  On top of which, my status effects can have their duration lengthened (everything lasts a set amount of turns to avoid fights where getting the effect off once is basically a win as long as you can spam "heal party") or their effects improved.  Sometimes those effects debuff the enemy in certain ways.

The real problem with implementing status effects of ANY KIND is the old psychological pain of "is this worth it?".  In short, it has to be worth it to a player to spend/waste the turn casting the status effect on the enemy/boss in order to promote the players using it.  It's the same issue you run into when you've got bosses completely immune to all status effects.  Players naturally relegate those moves to the "useless" bin and never use them in the entirety of your game.  If you're making these status effects WEAKER on bosses, you're promoting the same thing with the delusion that you're fixing the issue.  If you are going to have two different effects of the same status ailment, then both effects NEED to be worth inflicting, no matter who they are inflicted upon.

Now tell me, if a normal creature has 100Hp and you inflict "Poison" on them so that their health drops by 10% each turn...  But you have a boss monster with 2000 HP and that same Poison only drops health by 5% each turn...  Do you really think the player would find it worth it to cast?  I don't.  Especially if I can just cast a magic spell that would hit for anywhere from 6% to %8 damage each turn on that enemy.  You've essentially relegated the status effect to "worthlessness" at that point.  Especially when you consider that most players wouldn't want to wait around 10 turns to kill a basic enemy and would wipe it out in one or two, and if the status effect isn't useful against a boss (as in, you do more damage in other ways without wasting a turn), there's no real reason to cast it.

My own personal preference is one in which you have no "status effect" solo spells.  I prefer it always paired with something.  I don't like, "I cast Poison" and then people are poisoned.  I like "I cast Spider Vine!" and the spell that does damage for being a spell has a chance to inflict Poison upon the target.  That way, if it inflicts the status on the enemy, it's a bonus to casting the spell, and I don't have to worry about wasting a turn trying to inflict a status ailment.

 

[omen613]

Thats the age old problem with status effects..

People want normal mob encounters to be over in 1-2 turns...no reason to use a status effect right?

Boss fights are supposed to be 3+ turns but immune to status effects..... hmmmm

Hard to find that balance... Since in most cases they will only be used for crowd control such as Sleep

 

[CWells]

I prefer a different method to this as, to me, it seems to make the status effects equally useless if they do less damage on a boss than they would on a normal enemy.  The entire point of most status effects is to be used on enemies that are going to be around for more than 3 turns.  If you have a separate but weaker status effect for bosses, then you're basically telling the players not to bother with the status effect on them at all (unless it's something like debuffing a stat or casting silence/reflect).

I've taken a MUCH different approach.  My bosses have status RESISTANCES.  There are a few that have absolute immunities, but mostly, it's resistances.  I know, that seems cliché, but here's basically what I did:

Basic status effects have something from 45% to 55% chance of working against a normal enemy without any kind of weaknesses or resistances.  Since my status effects can be "leveled up" over time and as the player progresses, I'm leaving the strategy up to individual tastes.  What this does is...  It allows you to decide if you want to take out bosses or other enemies with status effects instead of brute force.  So, one of the upgrades on another of my status effects might get a boost of 25% to 30% boost in chance of working.  If a boss has a resistance to that particular effect (let's say he's got a 50% resistance to it), then with that boost, you've got a much higher chance of getting that effect on the boss.  On top of which, my status effects can have their duration lengthened (everything lasts a set amount of turns to avoid fights where getting the effect off once is basically a win as long as you can spam "heal party") or their effects improved.  Sometimes those effects debuff the enemy in certain ways.

The real problem with implementing status effects of ANY KIND is the old psychological pain of "is this worth it?".  In short, it has to be worth it to a player to spend/waste the turn casting the status effect on the enemy/boss in order to promote the players using it.  It's the same issue you run into when you've got bosses completely immune to all status effects.  Players naturally relegate those moves to the "useless" bin and never use them in the entirety of your game.  If you're making these status effects WEAKER on bosses, you're promoting the same thing with the delusion that you're fixing the issue.  If you are going to have two different effects of the same status ailment, then both effects NEED to be worth inflicting, no matter who they are inflicted upon.

Now tell me, if a normal creature has 100Hp and you inflict "Poison" on them so that their health drops by 10% each turn...  But you have a boss monster with 2000 HP and that same Poison only drops health by 5% each turn...  Do you really think the player would find it worth it to cast?  I don't.  Especially if I can just cast a magic spell that would hit for anywhere from 6% to %8 damage each turn on that enemy.  You've essentially relegated the status effect to "worthlessness" at that point.  Especially when you consider that most players wouldn't want to wait around 10 turns to kill a basic enemy and would wipe it out in one or two, and if the status effect isn't useful against a boss (as in, you do more damage in other ways without wasting a turn), there's no real reason to cast it.

My own personal preference is one in which you have no "status effect" solo spells.  I prefer it always paired with something.  I don't like, "I cast Poison" and then people are poisoned.  I like "I cast Spider Vine!" and the spell that does damage for being a spell has a chance to inflict Poison upon the target.  That way, if it inflicts the status on the enemy, it's a bonus to casting the spell, and I don't have to worry about wasting a turn trying to inflict a status ailment.

The duration of a status effect is important as well. Especially for things like poison. What I'm trying out is keeping effects like poison at around 8% but they last 5 turns. So you're nearly cutting half of an enemies life by keeping them sick. Now, this may not seem like it would be worth the cast but the characters using these ailments are not heavy hitters on their own. They are designed as support fighters. Their main goals are to buff and debuff, heal and shield. Of course they definitely do have strong attack spells and will increase enough over levels to be independent fighters, but in the amount of turns it may take for you to defend or weaken an attack, strengthen up your offense then strike, say two turns minimum before you are striking again, if you want to raise offense and lower enemy defense, poison is working in the background, cutting down health. Not only this, enemies will hit hard and HP is high. So you have your 8% cut along with whatever damage you will deal from a hit, and you gotta watch yourself too, keep your HP up, and play that important support role.

8% or even 5% isn't so bad since it scales with health. It all depends on the situation of the fight, the role of the characters in that fight, what their strengths and weaknesses are, etc

 

[Tai_MT]

The duration of a status effect is important as well. Especially for things like poison. What I'm trying out is keeping effects like poison at around 8% but they last 5 turns. So you're nearly cutting half of an enemies life by keeping them sick. Now, this may not seem like it would be worth the cast but the characters using these ailments are not heavy hitters on their own. They are designed as support fighters. Their main goals are to buff and debuff, heal and shield. Of course they definitely do have strong attack spells and will increase enough over levels to be independent fighters, but in the amount of turns it may take for you to defend or weaken an attack, strengthen up your offense then strike, say two turns minimum before you are striking again, if you want to raise offense and lower enemy defense, poison is working in the background, cutting down health. Not only this, enemies will hit hard and HP is high. So you have your 8% cut along with whatever damage you will deal from a hit, and you gotta watch yourself too, keep your HP up, and play that important support role.

8% or even 5% isn't so bad since it scales with health. It all depends on the situation of the fight, the role of the characters in that fight, what their strengths and weaknesses are, etc

You also have to keep in mind that many players don't usually run "support roles" in their parties if given the option to not do it.  Why?  Because most of the time status effects are somewhat useless or not worth casting.  Why should I bring along a support character when I can just bring along a heavy hitter instead?  And with the current run of everyone trying to min/max in RPGs of any kind or have "ultimate builds", it's somewhat tricky to give players incentives to even take these people along.

The most used party in every RPG to date is Tank, Bruiser, Black Mage, White Mage.  People don't like to abandon use of these classes because they are typically the most efficient way to get through absolutely any game.  If you opt for status effects of any kind in your game or characters who rely on inflicting them, you really need to plan bosses and regular enemies around "the most commonly used party won't work here".  It's kind of a jerk thing to do to your players, but it's a good way to get them to experiment a bit, when they would otherwise ignore your characters and spells (I admit, I am even guilty of ignoring these characters and spells, because I don't find them valuable in any RPG I ever play).

 

[CWells]

And this is mostly because they are barely, if ever, used correctly. Ever played Lost Odyssey for Xbox?

That game has a very linear level up system. The bar doesn't go up and stays at 100 to the next level. Character strength increases slowly as you level and every boss fight twists you into using your "tank" or "mage" roles in unique ways, sometimes outside of their comfort zone. No item in that game is ever unimportant. And every character matters. It is extremely rigid but it works. And there doesn't appear to be any free way to min/max your characters freely.

Your most used party set up pretty much lists most playable characters. And more or less, those roles do come with some skills that may inflict some status ailments or buffs/debuffs. White mages wont only heal, they can shield and remove status effects.

If you opt for status effects of any kind in your game or characters who rely on inflicting them, you really need to plan bosses and regular enemies around "the most commonly used party won't work here".  It's kind of a jerk thing to do to your players,

No it isn't. It's doing something different. It's getting people to play a little differently. And if done right, can be quite fun. Or have players suddenly become impatient zombies who only care about one hitting everything? Doesn't mean I have to allow that to the point where everything else doesn't matter.

 

[Tai_MT]

And this is mostly because they are barely, if ever, used correctly. Ever played Lost Odyssey for Xbox?

That game has a very linear level up system. The bar doesn't go up and stays at 100 to the next level. Character strength increases slowly as you level and every boss fight twists you into using your "tank" or "mage" roles in unique ways, sometimes outside of their comfort zone. No item in that game is ever unimportant. And every character matters. It is extremely rigid but it works. And there doesn't appear to be any free way to min/max your characters freely.

Your most used party set up pretty much lists most playable characters. And more or less, those roles do come with some skills that may inflict some status ailments or buffs/debuffs. White mages wont only heal, they can shield and remove status effects.

No it isn't. It's doing something different. It's getting people to play a little differently. And if done right, can be quite fun. Or have players suddenly become impatient zombies who only care about one hitting everything? Doesn't mean I have to allow that to the point where everything else doesn't matter.

Nope, never played it.

Also, it is kind of a jerk to players.  There are lots of players who would argue that they'd rather use what characters they like and enjoy instead of those forced upon them by the designer.  I, in particular, am one of those players.  Doesn't mean I don't like challenge or being forced to use certain characters from time to time...  But I tend to enjoy innovation and versatility in a party instead of basic class types.