WHY CAN'T I JUST POISON HIM A LITTLE BIT!?

Posts

In my game, I have a dozen or so debuffs (status effects) that can be used on all enemies including bosses. This includes damage over time debuffs, debuffs that reduces the amount of healing done to the target, debuffs that increase DMG done to the target and more.

One boss I have planned starts off with half health and if it's health becomes full it will explode killing your party. The player can do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't heal itself.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15170
askfnlsadkfnsdalnf la roooooowwwwwwaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnn

Status effect = Poison, sleep, stun, etc.

Debuff = lowered stat
dgqeruilqnbp94023nwn234gq235aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Sticklers for proper terminology!
post=141500
askfnlsadkfnsdalnf la roooooowwwwwwaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnn

Status effect = Poison, sleep, stun, etc.

Debuff = lowered stat


Craze = anal-retentive
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15170
No, it is the terminology. It's how it's supposed to be used. It's like saying "my mane has a lion" instead of "my lion has a mane." Or something.

It upsets people who know what they're talking about!

Leer lowers Attack in Pokemon. Leer causes a debuff, not a state. Sleep, however, is a state, not a debuff.
LouisCyphre
can't make a bad game if you don't finish any games
4523
post=141529
What about a state that is also a debuff?

Such as Burn in Pokes? That's "a state that is also a debuff".
LouisCyphre
can't make a bad game if you don't finish any games
4523
Burn halves Attack directly, which is equivalent to -2 attack debuffs.

What were you thinking of when you asked?
Burn is a state that happens to reduce stats as one of its effects and is handled as such in Pokemon.

E: To be clear states and debuffs have separate handling in what moves/items/methods remove/affect them. Debuffs clear on switch out while states don't, for one.

EE: Nor is it stackable, and so on and so forth.
States <> Status

A status is an abnormal condition inflicted on your character. Thus both state conditions like Sleep and buffs/debuffs such as Bikill are both status effects. Since they, you know, affect your character's status. Whether there are special rules for states vs. buffs is irrelevant.

Status effects and buffs/debuffs are separated precisely because of the rulesets they work with
Actually, most status effects, including states like Sleep, are held in the same data list associated with a player object. Status effects are the superclass (or parent class) from which states and debuffs inherit.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
Can this not become an argument about semantics?
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15170
Look at the PS2 Personas (or any recent SMT game): Sukunda, Tarukaja, etc. have their own displays over each combatant showing "oh hey DMG+1" or "welp SPD-4." They are buffs.

Sleep, Stone, etc. have a chance to be resisted, usually have an effect that doesn't just toy with stats, and only last a certain number of turns and/or require a cure. They are states.

Solitayre: It's an important distinction. That said, if a person doesn't care about it, then they probably never will.

kentona: We still separate squares from rectangles and lions from felines!
post=141540
Look at the PS2 Personas (or any recent SMT game): Sukunda, Tarukaja, etc. have their own displays over each combatant showing "oh hey DMG+1" or "welp SPD-4." They are buffs.

Sleep, Stone, etc. have a chance to be resisted, usually have an effect that doesn't just toy with stats, and only last a certain number of turns and/or require a cure. They are states!


Some games have 'debuffs' function the same way as statuses, as in, they can be resisted, they last a certain number of turns, and they can be cured!

I'm not really in this debate, just tossing it in there.
post=141540
kentona: We still separate squares from rectangles and lions from felines!

But when you say "let's talk about rectangles!" and then proceed to talk about squares and chastise someone who talks about a different kind of rectangle, it is irksome!
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15170
post=141542
post=141540
kentona: We still separate squares from rectangles and lions from felines!
But when you say "let's talk about rectangles!" and then proceed to talk about squares and chastise someone who talks about a different kind of rectangle, it is irksome!


I never did such a thing. Rowan called degenerative effects debuffs, and I told him they were states.

MOG: I was talking about Persona 3/4 and Strange Journey specifically! Hell, buffs only last three turns in P3/4.
so you state! do ho ho...

Anywho, personal anecdote time:

I was once praised for how effective and well implemented status conditions were in Hero's Realm. I can admit now that I made no special effort to make status conditions special in that game - I kind of made them when I started and then forgot about them. Thus almost all bosses and enemies are vunerable to all of the states at the same resistance levels.

To each his own, I suppose!
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
The thing about status effects is that a lot of them are inherently "instant win". If you paralyze an enemy, it can no longer do anything at all. If you make it do half damage, or take double damage, you can easily overpower it. If you poison it, you win 10 rounds later even if you do nothing but heal and defend for the rest of the battle. Minor debuffs to enemy stats do not give you an "instant win" mechanic, and therefore should be no problem to use against bosses - they are therefore outside the scope of this debate.

This is fine in a normal battle. When you're fighting 2-6 enemies of similar power, and you can win the battle in only a few rounds, then a 50% chance to hit with one of these effects for a 4 round duration is fair. Anything weaker would be quite useless, in fact.

In a boss battle, with one strong enemy that takes 10+ rounds to kill, that same chance becomes ridiculously overpowered. If you can get the status off, then the entire challenge of the boss disappears. Alternately, if the boss is still difficult after using the status, then it's probably impossible to beat without the status. A 50% chance to stun the boss for four rounds? Man, okay, I'll just have two of my party members cast that status. It'll almost certainly hit. Then the boss can't do anything the whole fight! Woo!

To compensate, there are a few things you can do:

1) Make statuses have much lower hit rates, or much lower durations. However, this makes them become useless against anything except bosses.
2) Make statuses have much lower hit rates or durations, but only against bosses. Essentially, your bosses will resist status effects, similar to the way monsters resist elements. This lowers the chance of easymode-vaporizing the boss, but still lets it happen rarely. So someone who is lucky (or who reloads the game until they get lucky) can get around having to use the proper tactics or being the proper level for your bosses, and thus avoid having to deal with the challenges you intended for them to face.
3) Make statuses not work at all against bosses. This makes statuses rather more boring, especially if your normal enemies aren't difficult enough to merit using statuses on.
4) Make statuses work, but give bosses ways to continue being a challenge even through them. For instance, a boss could be able to be put to sleep, but if you do so then allies will appear to aid it. This is rather hard to do well, and can often feel like a cheap gimmick to the player.

As you can see, none of these options are perfect - they all have significant problems, which is why there isn't any one option that games have all decided to use.