The Good and the Bad of Monster Encounters

[Khelek]

I recently saw the accuracy issue get some attention from our community reps, so I figured I'd strike while the iron is hot and point out some places where I feel the game can improve massively when it comes to encounter mechanics. Let me list the good and the bad mechanics to use for encounters and hear your thoughts.

The Good:

• Hate Reset
• Single Random-Target Enfeebling Debuffs
• AOE Damage Over Time Debuffs
• Aura Damage Over Time Debuffs
• Mob Health % Triggered Big Attacks
• Removable or Avoidable Enfeebling Debuffs
• Triggered Mechanics With Trigger Indications
• Monster Self Buffing
• The Magic Evasion System

The Bad:

• AOE Enfeebling Debuffs
• Aura Enfeebling Debuffs
• Big Repeatable AOE Damage
• Unremovable or Unavoidable Enfeebling Debuffs
• 1HKO Moves Without Trigger Mechanics
• Triggered Mechanics Without Trigger Indications
• The Evasion System

The points listed under 'The Good' are fun and engaging mechanics that give the players things to react to and plan for. These are great as they allow the players to have agency throughout the entire fight. The points listed under 'The Bad' however, are mechanics that happen without actually involving the players at all, and in some cases straight up removes the players from the equation completely.

Also, let's talk evasion VS magic evasion for a second. The Magic Evasion system is brilliant. It lets the player improve their character through gear and buffs, without ever becoming completely useless if an encounter is a bit too tough. They will always be able to perform consistently. The Evasion system however, does not only make players unable to do anything at all if they're not decked out, it doesn't even let decked out players perform consistently, as there is always a chance of your attacks completely missing and doing nothing. Not being able to do anything despite being as good as you can be is the worst feeling in any monster encounter. An easy fix would be to either raise the accuracy cap to 100%. The more involved solution would be to adopt the magic evasion system and make it so that "missed" attacks simply do less damage.

If you think anything else should be listed, let me know.

[zataz]

id have to shoot down your list cause i enjoy alot of the stuff u put in the bad like the one hit ko moves =P just more stuff to plan for

[Khelek]

You seem to be confused as to what I meant then. The things listed as bad are things you can't plan for (spammable 1HKO moves can't be planned for, you get lucky or you don't), if you want to allow for a variation of job roles to be useful, instead of the current situation, where every strat is tank and a nuke team that can stand away from the danger. That's not fun, that's not diverse. That's removing yourself from the encounter as much as you can until you don't have to interact with it.