Disquiet (Working Title) - System Design (formerly concepting)

[AndrewRogue]

Touche.

Note, because this totally occurred to me right before I fell asleep last night.

Mirek should probably have a skill that cancels out his Soul Skills period.

[Grefter]

Any preference on when to learn it?  Baseline or later?  I think he could function okay without it until he learns a couple more.

[AndrewRogue]

Should probably grant it baseline just for simplicity? Rather, give it when he learns Bunker Soul (as he will definitely want it for Essence Flare, but it makes more sense just to intro it early). Nama suggests making it more or 0 net Stamina loss/gain and a free action.

[AndrewRogue]

Quick rough skill list for Eirwen

Start with Speed Fang/First Aid, pick up Therapy ~Legion, Pick up Bloodletting ~Sebrle, Pick up Vulcan Chain on the Throne?

Quick rough skill list for Kasia

Start with Recovery/Power Shot/Bolster, Pick up Leg Shot ~ Thugs, Pick up ~Cleansing Legion, Pick up Confuse Attack ~Sebrle?

[Grefter]

Progression seems okay.

Alternately tie dumping soul skills in to some of his other moves?  I could totally see Banishing Edge tuned along my vision for it to dump Soul Skills.  Maybe give him a stam cheap attack that does it?  (Incidentally we are way too conservative with making skills Stamina neutral.  Skills that are a net Stamina gain can have a cost some other way.  It gets players using skills instead of dumping and then conserving with physicals.  We want the gauge moving in both directions.)

Edit - fucking phone typing.

Edit 2 - Thinking on it more I had another idea that would probably take reworking the eventing used for Soul skills at the moment, but could be neat. 

And I lost the mechanical way I was thinking that it could work.  Fuck.  But I was thinking you would need to create a State of "soulskillinuse" that skills add so you track if one is in use to remove the bunch of stat up that Soul Skills kick in.  Make an FP skill that removes the "soulskillinuse" so that he can use two different souls at once for the rest of that fight (and if you use one of the moves that costs Soul Skill it would wipe them both out), that was what I couldn't work out how to do.

This makes no sense because I am tired but at 11 at night after having woken up at 5 in the morning and then having had 3 shots of espresso in the last 5 hours it sounds so awesome you guys. RAPERAPERAPESENTENCESTRUCTURE.

Edit 3- For reference, excited Grefter that wakes up to make posts with ideas is not going to be super coherent.

Edit 4 - SILLY IDEA.  Party wide Prepare buff as a skill.  lololol burn phase much?




Edit 5 - I feel like I should probably discuss why I favour net positive moves for characters so much.  There is a 3 things spring to mind that you need to keep in mind surrounding it, these are points that all interact.

1. The benefit to using a basic physical is this, it gains you your full stamina regen. 

2. Skills need to do more damage than basic physicals, otherwise you are spending stamina for no reason.

3. With points 1 and 2 in mind.  Having characters with net stamina gain skills lets you have a nominal reduction in stamina gain to output more damage, but not to the point that you need to cost them so high that the damage is a big step up from basic physicals.  The nominal cost goes towards making the skill elemental or to run off Magic instead of Str or whatever extra benefit there is.

The reasons to do all of the above is twofold to giving options.  A) It moves characters away from basic physicals as much B) It provides players more choices and C) it provides another avenue to differentiate characters.  Erastus has no Stamina neutral skills.  Noemi and Kasia do.  Mirek doesn't in my model either but leverages basic physicals more than anyone else (which we want below 50% of the time still, so whenever I say a character built around his basic physical, he is still less so than like 90% of RPG fighters out there, it is all in the context of everyone else having options to get around it). 

Costing to make stamina pools dwindle to 0 just drives more usage of the attack command.  That isn't how I want to design the combat system and whenever we talk about basic physicals Nama has kittens.  Lets stop designing towards driving players to use it.

All this is to say.  I want Flare Shot to cost 2.  I want Noemi regen at 3.  That is the reasoning behind the line of thinking.  So when I throw that in there you know where I am coming from.

Edit 6 - And as for why prevalent cost neutral is bad, you are just making the bar not move on cost neutral moves.  Make the player shift up their skill use and get that bar moving.  Don't have a cost neutral move that replaces basic physicals.  Have 2 or 3 skills they can juggle to do the same effect and get that bar moving around.  Make the player see it in action.

Edit 1 billion - So yeah I can't sleep because ideas keep getting into my head.  It is also partly a player psychology thing.  We are giving them multiple ways to still "gain" stamina while still only having the same passive intake system.  It is in our control, but we give them more choice on how they interact with it.  With that we also give them ways to spend Stamina on expensive moves that are only marginal DPS increases (Crescendos for Noemi in my design, they are a damage boost, but more inefficient or just Spark Cluster).  They can afford to spend it because they are still "gaining" stamina, but it is still a net zero sum system.  That is really the key, don't make moves have no impact on stamina, make multiple turns zero sum instead.  It makes the whole Stamina system more effective as it allows more room for choice (and consequence!) while still filling the same basic functionality or making cost neutral moves.

Pretty much at the heart of it, get that bar moving and don't let it stop.  Different characters will have different rhythms to it, but what we don't want to see is it sitting at one point on the bar constantly (Unless you are Erastus).

[DjinnAndTonic]

Was reading through this, enjoying the concepting talk. Is there any place to see current information compiled?

[AndrewRogue]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap9Rajy9yCOBdEhSaTRKSEVzUFlId1IwTklJUGtDakE

It is a little behind these days, but voila.

[AndrewRogue]

Edit 5 - I feel like I should probably discuss why I favour net positive moves for characters so much.  There is a 3 things spring to mind that you need to keep in mind surrounding it, these are points that all interact.

1. The benefit to using a basic physical is this, it gains you your full stamina regen. 

2. Skills need to do more damage than basic physicals, otherwise you are spending stamina for no reason.

3. With points 1 and 2 in mind.  Having characters with net stamina gain skills lets you have a nominal reduction in stamina gain to output more damage, but not to the point that you need to cost them so high that the damage is a big step up from basic physicals.  The nominal cost goes towards making the skill elemental or to run off Magic instead of Str or whatever extra benefit there is.

The reasons to do all of the above is twofold to giving options.  A) It moves characters away from basic physicals as much B) It provides players more choices and C) it provides another avenue to differentiate characters.  Erastus has no Stamina neutral skills.  Noemi and Kasia do.  Mirek doesn't in my model either but leverages basic physicals more than anyone else (which we want below 50% of the time still, so whenever I say a character built around his basic physical, he is still less so than like 90% of RPG fighters out there, it is all in the context of everyone else having options to get around it). 

Costing to make stamina pools dwindle to 0 just drives more usage of the attack command.  That isn't how I want to design the combat system and whenever we talk about basic physicals Nama has kittens.  Lets stop designing towards driving players to use it.

All this is to say.  I want Flare Shot to cost 2.  I want Noemi regen at 3.  That is the reasoning behind the line of thinking.  So when I throw that in there you know where I am coming from.

Edit 6 - And as for why prevalent cost neutral is bad, you are just making the bar not move on cost neutral moves.  Make the player shift up their skill use and get that bar moving.  Don't have a cost neutral move that replaces basic physicals.  Have 2 or 3 skills they can juggle to do the same effect and get that bar moving around.  Make the player see it in action.

Edit 1 billion - So yeah I can't sleep because ideas keep getting into my head.  It is also partly a player psychology thing.  We are giving them multiple ways to still "gain" stamina while still only having the same passive intake system.  It is in our control, but we give them more choice on how they interact with it.  With that we also give them ways to spend Stamina on expensive moves that are only marginal DPS increases (Crescendos for Noemi in my design, they are a damage boost, but more inefficient or just Spark Cluster).  They can afford to spend it because they are still "gaining" stamina, but it is still a net zero sum system.  That is really the key, don't make moves have no impact on stamina, make multiple turns zero sum instead.  It makes the whole Stamina system more effective as it allows more room for choice (and consequence!) while still filling the same basic functionality or making cost neutral moves.

Pretty much at the heart of it, get that bar moving and don't let it stop.  Different characters will have different rhythms to it, but what we don't want to see is it sitting at one point on the bar constantly (Unless you are Erastus).

Okay. Did not get time to actually respond, because Eady came over last night to talk art and stuffs. So let me try to find some time to do it now.

Tying a Soul Neutralizer to another skill works well enough. The main concern is it doesn't quite mesh with the brain well (why can't he just cool it), but meshing it into some sort of "basic" attack would be good. Given his expensive costs to begin with, it might not be bad to make it Stamina positive to create upward movement for him. To this end, we might (also given the relative power of Bunker Soul and plot stuff and blah blah) create a Stamina Regen retarding effect on his Soul skills to make them, in general, a little less no brainer. It also gives a little more interest (and patterning) in choosing to break them if you have a positive flow Stamina skill.

Potential of maintaining multiple Souls at once as a later ability is pretty neat.

Mirek prolly shouldn't branch into party offensive buffs. >_>

Okay. The rest of this actually makes sense, but is going to take me a bit longer to formulate a response to, so let me post this in and edit the rest in as I have time.

Edit: All right, the basic idea works. It definitely shouldn't be universal (Stamina flow being more character based), but you've generally sold me on the reason Net Positive Stamina should exist in some places. The trick is to create a gradation of effectiveness and make sure it builds to the character.

IN GENERAL, I agree we shouldn't aim for zeroing out. What we should aim is denying useful response/utility abilities with Stamina. This does NOT apply to all PCs (for example, we want Erastus to burn down, I think).

More edits later.

Edit2: There is definitely a logic to the idea that we want to emphasize Stamina, so getting the bar to move as much as possible would be good. I kind of wonder if (gonna get hate for this) making Stamina damage a little more common might not be a bad idea in this regard, as it'll force more decision making, especially with +Stam skills. Hm. Hm.

[Grefter]

Crescendo Prepare >_>?  I am just attached to ot because "Victory loves Preparation" (and dunno if anyone else has watched The Mechanic.  Fun Jason Statham flick.)

[AndrewRogue]

1.11 should be more or less consistent with the master doc now.

Also, noting first Accessory idea here: SP Damage Prevention

Current basic design for characters:

Noemi: The basic of the system. Simple attacks are easy and can actually net positive stamina, while her big attacks are pretty costly. Midrange regen.

Kasia: Similar to Noemi, but less control over her Stamina consumption.

Erastus: Leaning towards MP pool: deep but very slow regeneration.

Eirwen: Very small pool, but fairly stable as a result.

Mirek: Slower version of Noemi/Kasia. Consumes it in large bursts and generally regens slowly, but only needs those bursts intermittently and has one of the better basic physicals.

Batrol: Derp.

[Grefter]

Tons of edits because this is posted from phone and is wall of text.  Just putting down some design intent and ideas to paper that I have talked about in meetings or had in my head.

Just to clarify, this isn't a treatise on like THIS IS HOW CHARACTERS SHOULD BE THIS IS THE VISION AND THIS IS HOW IT WILL BE.  It is just kind of a Grefter's State of Design just to check in where my head is at with this and where I think the direction we are largely taking with characters at the moment.  Maybe I am just doing BUUUUUURP COPYING MCA AND WRITING DEVELOPMENT BLOG.  I don't know, but hey discussion points if anyone is interested!




Specifically Mirek is built to leverage his Guard command with greater frequency than everyone else.  Forcing Prepare into his basic cycle roughly half the time gives you a character who is deceptively tanky without significant stat advantage.  Really shines on Magic of course but makes him less soft to physicals than at first glance.  Will make him play nicer with his Odds booster on fights with a mix of physical and magic damage.

Some random ideas that floated through my brain while talking about balance with Andy for stamina in 1.11.

Noemi rotationaly uses FP in smaller amounts than most for Crescendoes.  This is good.  She will need a good strong FP skill to compensate.  Tossing up possibility of some kind of Stamina to FP conversion skill at some point?  Could be Erastus cycle bleeding over in my brain though.

Kasia, I kind of want to give her heal block removal at high FP.  This will struggle to see use since healing with her costs FP.  More of a clutch recovery skill to pick up gaps created by random burst and item induced Heal Block. (Plays nice with the item having longer Block than Kasia) Probably has to be instant or super fast action (75%?).

I was toying with alternate Bolster design.  I still want to try and find a way to make it worth using ST.  Had toyed with it making Target defend, but I think that is too hard to implement.  Another thought was to make it cheaper but cost target small bit of FP instead of spirit debuff.

Andy pointed out Cleansing is worthless while Antidote exists.  Dropped Vit down and added Spirit buff.  This needs work.

Erastus doesn't so much have a rotation or cycle so much as a skill curve he uses.  I think there is a few possible choices as well.  Long game use of Ignition and Flareshit spam, burn to 0 quickly and breather to drop FP skills every few turns (this is long valleys of damage). Or he can squat on his Stamina and build FP with Breather spam, dump an Ignition and then unleash.  Basic idea here is that either Stamina is plentiful and FP is a cool boost for him in the first, FP is plentiful and Stamina is precious in the second and both are stockpiled at the cost of Erastus doing absolutely nothing for a chunk of the fight (which is a significant opportunity cost with him being frailest and slowest cast member.  Breather helps with this, but he is still a resource sink while doing nothing for a while.

Eirwen has a small pool to keep her really simple.  She has little stamina pool but regents it quickly.  She doesn't have to put much thought into managing it but it is there to throttle her output somewhat.  I am kind of happier with this design going forward if she is leveraging more Item costed skills as well.  We might be looking at most of her physical skill set already.  She grows broader in her utility rather than face punching.

Which is a point I should elaborate on since I don't think we have it written down.  We nearly talked ourselves out of having skills costing items on Eirwen which I think was a design that was fairly well liked.  Answer was obvious but we missed it at first.  Make more item costed skills.  Make items available.  Problem solves itself.  Make them different to the core item so she doesn't feel like she just has item boosting trait.  Bam you have a niche character functionality.  The thing I like with item based utility being free, she will barely ever us that basic physical while still being a "simple character".  Also makes her gloriously mundane.  If she wore flat shoes and studies Realpolitik she just might steal my heart.

Bartol is not fully formed in my brain, don't have a real grasp on the character (might have to talk to Andy and Sopko to get a feel?).  So some of this is just pure design playing.  I would like to see a character who uses FP more than everyone else.  Have his pool move like everyone else does for Stamina.  This came from his design with FP neutral skill he had.  It could be fun to have him slow build and then by the end of a fight he is a bit of a juggernaut (bitch).  Not sure if that is pure tanking or damage or what.  Again not fully formed.  Other possibilities is leveraging him as indirect attacks.  Like ATM he is only source of impacting enemy turn order.  Could expand on that so he controls enemy outside traditional shutdown control.  So Stagger and Delay like he has, but expand on it a bit.  Actually that seems to have been the original intent now that I think of the skill set.  Hmmm just a question of how to grow it.

[AndrewRogue]

Quick notes-

Corpulent should probably not triple hit Kasia (I actually lost due to an Amplification attack turn -> normal turn without a turn for her in between. Not common, but problematic, especially since this was under Bolster).

Possibly the generic thugs in the thug fight should break if the leaders are defeated? They can be quite tedious to beat.

Need to adjust Mirek's regen method likely because of Prepare allowing him to speed his regen really hard. In fact, may want to make Prepare his source of regen rather then turn based?

[Grefter]

Note for self, need to check master version has Mirek at 2 regen.  3 definitely felt like you describe.  Probably wouldn't tie all the regen to Prep, but I think dropping him to 1 and loading some MP regen into it might work? I like there being an opportunity cost to dropping the Prep cycle in that you wasted the turn of The attack up.  Baking regen into it might even reward chain Prepping depending on how we blow the skill set out (worth mentioning might be desired, not in my current mental framework).  Edit - This was at 2.  Hmmmm.  Interesting.  1 regen with +1 MP from Prep is the closest we can get to 1.5 MP regen without adding a cost to Prep which I think is the wrong direction to go.

All his regen in Prep adds some stamina cost to item use that could be funky.

Could be more a need to boost Soul skill costs so he has less pooled.  Or I think you have mentioned possibility of Soul Skills having SP maintenance cost (functionally just less SP regen per turn unless you get to 0 Stamina, which I honestly don't mind being unpunished).  Hmm, thinking on it we could bake either of those into the Soul events I think (call to change his regen), but once we have Stamina damage it would be easier to bake into a status (soulskillinuse status rambled about before?  Would make dual Soul Skill FP skill get rid of the regen loss until he used a second one.... Which would be okay actually.)  Edit - after confirming above.  I think making the soul skills cost 1 Stamina per turn is probably the right balance point to work with.  It keeps his regen higher if he isn't using soul skills where he presumably is mostly just on the offensive.  Adds more stark trade off to go on the defensive which I am okay with.

Noting we haven't done enemy balance changes, but in my versions I dropped Corpulent's dex by 5 and the durability gap between Kasia and Noemi didn't feel nearly as cavernous.  The difference between medium armour and one swing and medium armour and three swings is extreme.

[AndrewRogue]

New post time.  This time with opinions on the version that has been dubbed v1.11.  Going to be short and sweet because I have a good bit to do tonight, and I do not mean play Guild Wars 2, as awesome as that game is.

-First hit status is really getting to me.  I'm of the persuasion that status chances should probably be altered to apply the intended rate over so many hits.  I was 2 for 5 on Fire Resist Down.

-Power Shot?  Awesome.  After testing it a couple of times, I like it.  It's tough to use due to the prereqs, but Kasia can pull upwards of 450 damage to Corpulent with it, which is nice.  Didn't get much of a chance to use it in other fights, but with how they go, that's to be expected

-Elixirs!  They can actually turn a fight around!  65% feels like it's just the right value, too.  Good call on that one--should make the bandit fight reliably beatable for normal people possibly, in fact.

-On the subject of costs, while I understand Flare Shot being 2 for that "here have a net positive" skill, Spark Cluster feels a bit too low-cost.  Perhaps it needs another boost, but I'm not sure where at this point; might be tempted to convert it to a two-hit effect as to not make it grossly high on base power, but I want it to definitely rank up there as more expensive.  Something to justify a higher cost, largely.

-Saying it right now, not happy with Eirwen's pool being literally 3.  I felt I had something with the 15/7/12 deal I had going in my rendition, but I just think that a discrepancy of that much simply does not feel right, especially since I'm feeling that we should probably be 50/50 with item/non-item skills with her, rather than leave her offensive skillset bare by comparison.  Too much one way or the other, and the rest will feel tacked on.

-I feel enemies will need restatting once I'm done with it.  Except maybe the bandit fight.  That one might be just as good once everything's in place.  reminds me, need to theorize on potential sidegrade stuff.

-Ignition, I'm currently feeling is more of an opportunity matter than anything else, rather than a fight-long debuff.  Or at least, that's how it's coming off to me ideally.  Probably needs its cost halved, on that note.

-forgot the rest of what I wanted to post, but whatever.  I can come back to it later.

Trying to condense topics a bit.

[AndrewRogue]

Hmm, hmm...

Nama, could you clarify your thoughts re: 3 v 15 pool size? I've been doing some math (oh noes) and the most appreciable difference is Vulcan Chain Frequency (Every 3rd turn with 3 vs Every 2nd then 3rd turn). Is it just the relative pool depths between the characters?

[AndrewRogue]

1. 1 per turn, 2 per Prep might be good enough? Dunno, need to play with it a bit.

2. That is a good point about adding a pseudo cost to items.

3. See 2. I actually like the idea of Soul Skills having SP Maintenance costs. Implementation via SP damage or via regen deduction ("damage" prolly makes more sense?) should be possible with current tools.

[AndrewRogue]

1. Keep in mind that, statistically, this makes no difference to status application, theoretically empowers Dex, and weakens evade. It may also cause issues with status resistance (this may or may not be an issue). I can see disliking it being front loaded due to how it "feels," but I want to check that the feeling is the objection.

2. Power Shot seems pretty solid. It is quite tough to actually get off, but item spam may make it more possible? Have to watch it.

3. Still need to experiment with Elixirs.

4. To be fair, we don't want it to be shifted too high. The idea is to give her three base offensive options. Weakest Physical with most Regeneration, Moderate Damage with Mild Regen, Good Damage with Stamina Lost. What would you want Spark Cluster costing?

5. I can see the concern with the full size difference. There was some sidetalk while pushing out 1.12 about the smaller pool giving her some unique interactions (being oddly vulnerable to stamina damage and, should it exist, oddly helped by Stamina restoration) that better defined her abilities. You were saying yesterday 9 is about the lowest you'd be comfortable with, but would 6 be possible?

6. Hm. I sort of disagree about the tacked on thing. Her physical skillset actually feels very complete at the moment. I wouldn't be adverse to picking up another thing or so, but I don't really think it is necessary to keep them at 50/50 to avoid the tacked on feeling. Keep in mind more items doesn't mean her offensive skillset is "bare." It is explicitly her physical skillset that is. Items can still be offensive in theory.

7. Small thought: Maybe make Vulcan chain a set number of hits? I need to look into expected hits, but it has actually occurred to me that High Dex/Low Str builds are actually offensively weak against high Dex enemies. Setting Vulcan Chain to fixed hits (and growing it as game progresses) gives it a solid niche and also makes her expected output less swingy.

8. Could you further explain your point, re: Ignition?

[Dark Holy Elf]

While I doubt I'll have the time/energy to do deep testing unfortunately, one thing that is jumping out at me as I test things to do with coding (and has been for the last few weeks) is the game's lack of a quick "skip turn" action. This matters because sometimes you only want one PC to do things (usually the last action of the battle) and watching any other animations waiting for that is a waste of time. In most RPGs defend can serve this purpose fine, but our defend commands are a bit more time-consuming... mostly an issue with Noemi. Not sure what to suggest. A universal half-turn wait command, maybe?

Take this criticism with a grain of salt because while I do think it's an issue in standard gameplay (definitely the main reason I use defend in some games!), it's much more of one when testing which is of course all I've been doing with the engine of late.

[AndrewRogue]

At the least just tossing in one for testing purposes would be fine. Wouldn't a full turn skip be more ideal though?

[AndrewRogue]

Changes determined at the meeting.

We will need to toy with Noemi's Focus consumption.
We will be (for now) rolling with 3SP for Eirwen.
We will be attempting to reduce Mirek's regen while he is using Soul skills (MPWall). Also, still need a Soul Skill cancel for him.
We will try a few variations on Cleansing to see what works better for it.
We will try out both Grefter and Nama's takes on Ignition (longterm debuff vs short term debuff).

[Grefter]

Still fiddling with Bolster in the same way as Ignition. 

For reference it is just building two variants in the database and testing how they feel in one consistent version rather than running multiple versions of the game like we had been now that we are largely on the same page and happy regarding majority of system implementations.

Edit - on Cleansing I know I said during the meeting that it feels like I reach for fast action a lot (which I might ramble on sometime) but if we want to leave the item a relevant choice (at least in Ch 1?) then fast action might be the best way to achieve it.  Fast expensive action that you pay for the flexibility or you use item?

Not convinced it allows the skill to grow in a way that doesn't feel like a nerf if it drops back to standard action.  An interesting dilemma I hadn't considered when we talked about item availability when going over Eirwen's skills.  If they were more expensive the item savings might solve it (not recommend route to go down).

[074]

Really, yes, just a big post of brief concepts.  But I'm wordy and pressed for time so I haven't edited this.  At all.  Half the numbers I might've been pulling out of my ass.

Slothful:
Turn Expectation--3-4, depending on how much magic is used and availability of
Details--Starter enemy.  Hits fairly hard physically and can inflict minor status to boot (thinking Slow or Stagger).  Weak to fire attacks, and is slow.

Unwanted:
Turn Expectation--2-3, depending on the number of physicals used.
Details--Starter enemy.  It'll throw out Disquiet-type magic, which loves to come with added rider effects.  Bad physical durability.

Verminous:
Turn Expectation--2
Details--THAT FUCKING BASTARD THAT STICKS STATUS ON YOU AND THEN RUNS AWAY.  Kind of frail, but can be ignored if desired.  Speedy, and will go before you.

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BOSS: Corpulent
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Round Expectation--9, 8 with a lucky critical from Kasia.  Crits are actually a thing at this point.
Details: First real challenge.  Two phases: First phase tends to be very ST-oriented--single-target Disquiet and physical attacks.  Second phase has more offensively-weighted stats and different attacks, with MT disquiet magic damage and stun.

Raider:
Turn Expectation--2-4, factoring in evasion.
Details--Evasive bastard.  Will attack with a random magic attack item (Fire, Ice, Lightning).  Also may inflict blind and other statuses.  Knife-level power, fast and high swingcount.

Thrasher:
Turn Expectation--3-4
Details--Heavy on HP, mediocre on the defensive end.  Built around smashing dudes fairly hard.

Smasher:
Turn Expectation--4-5
Details--DEFENSE.  Not so heavy on magic defense, but they can definitely take a hit.  Specialize in doing moderate damage and messing with your own defensive stats as well.  Ow.

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BOSS: Gang Leader
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Round Expectation: 2-3, factoring in circumstances
Details--big, physically tough and strong, low DEX, a bleed move, a stagger, and a randotarget multihit attack.  Synergizes obnoxiously well with the second-in-command.

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BOSS: Second-in-command (these guys need names)
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Round Expectation: 3, factoring in circumstances and evasion
Details--Magically tanky and good on DEX.  Can provide element resistance and attacks with a variety of spells of single- and multitarget flavor.  Fairly bad alone, makes groups of enemies into a notable threat.

Legbreaker
Turn Expectation--2
Details--They have okayish HP!  And they hit hard!  Everything else about them is terrible!  ...okay they largely exist so the intro fight for Mirek is longer and so Eirwen shows off her awesome DEX and both show off their awesome evade.

Hired Asshole
Turn Expectation--4-5
Details--High DEF, DEX, and decent HP.  Shows off why Mail Cleaver is awesome.  Also may have minor special abilities.

Ephemeral:
Turn Expectation--5
Details--Resists physical, ice, and earth.  Weak to Anti-Disquiet.  Poor DEX.  Can inflict Confuse, Bleed, and cast Disquiet spells.

Ambivalent:
Turn Expectation--4
Details--Resists physical, ice, and earth, despite subpar DEX and DEF.  Weak to Anti-Disquiet.  Magically tanky.  Can buff allies' MDEF and do magic damage in MT and ST varieties--ST lowers target SPI, MT adds bleed.

Repugnant:
Turn Expectation--5.
Details--Tanky.  Weak to Anti-Disquiet.  Can do solid physical damage, has several moves that inflict damage and status(stun, stagger).

Enslaved:
Turn Expectation--2-3, factoring evasion.
Details--High SPD, DEX, and evasive.  Strong to piercing, ice, and lightning, weak to impact, fire, and Anti-Disquiet.  Slashing damage, and ST ice and disquiet spells

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BOSS: Legion
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Round Expectation--9-11, depending on party makeup
Details--Resists Pierce and Impact damage (...maybe also Fire?  Not sure yet).  Weak to Anti-Disquiet.  No physical attack.  Uses a soft pattern of Disquiet and Ice magic of ST and MT flavors with status attached, with self-boosting of its own MAG intermixed.

Guardian Striker
Turn Expectation--3-4, pending on evasion
Details--Evasive, magically tanky.  High ATK, uses single strikes.

Guardian Skirmisher
Turn Expectation--3-4, pending on evasion
Details--Evasive, magically tanky.  High ATK, can reduce MAG and EVA.

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BOSS: [name?  Andy give me character info on this dude plz]
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Round Expectation--
Details--

<lobsterpeople>, need better name:
Turn Expectation--4-5 pending on tactics
Details--Particularly tanky versus physicals, resistant to slashing and piercing damage.  Weak to lightning.  Heavy ST physical damage that can reduce DEF as well as random-target and multihit physicals.

<anglegger>, need better name:
Turn Expectation--4
Details--Immune to Lightning, resists Impact.  Very high HP, albeit low defense.  Utilizes lightning magic(ST, two-target Random)  and can inflict Blind.  Have fun.

Envious:
Turn Expectation--3
Details--Weak to Slashing.  Extremely high SPR and MDEF.  Attacks with elemental magic attacks (Fire, Ice, MT Earth)

--------
BOSS: GIANT ENEMY CRAB/BEE
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Round Expectation--10
Details--Resists slashing (and fire?).  Weak to Lightning.  High HP and extremely high DEF.  Heavy impact damage (ITD ST, ST->MT, MT, other), heavy MT Disquiet at low health.

Ambiguous:
Turn Expectation--4
Details--Resists physical, weak to Anti-Disquiet, has good SPR and MAG.  Attacks with primarily MT Disquiet magic (weak+poison or strong) or ST(+SPR down)

Tormented:
Turn Expectation--3
Details--high physical stats all around, low SPR, average HP, and low MDEF, subpar magic durability, pure physical in abilities (slashing physical, two-hit random slashing, single-hit piercing with bleed, single-hit piercing ITD)

Despised:
Turn Expectation--5
Details--High defenses on both ends, weak to Impact.  Uses two-hit RT stun, lightning magic, disquiet parasitic healing.

Unfeeling:
Turn Expectation--8+?
Details--high stats aside from MAG(average?), DEX, and SPD.  Resists Slash, Pierce, Lightning.  Weak to Ice.  Uses some Earth magic(3-hit random+Stagger) and impact physicals (normal, single-hit followed by MT, single with STR down)

Tattered:
Turn Expectation--3-4
Details--Evasive, high DEX, SPD, and ACC.  Below-average STR.  Weak to Piercing and Lightning.  Attacks under reconcepting.

[074]

Right.  So Andy told me to post boss patterns that I've come up with thus far.  Keep in mind that either due to CTB or due to wonky interactions between YEM and the current engine additions, "turns" are a very loosely-defined thing in this.

Legion, AKA Grefter's favorite boss, on a 3-turn cycle with a changeup under Focus Power.  All abilities are at priority 5 barring Focus Power abilities, which are priority 10

Turn 0: Desecration, Cold Snap, Focus Power, (Discordance when below 45%)
Turn 1: Desecration, Focus Power, Putrefaction, (Discordance when below 45%)
Turn 2: Putrefaction, Cold Snap, Hailstorm(6-hit random-target ice magic.  5% CTB reset), (Discordance when below 45%)
If under effect of Focus Power for the turn: Discordance, Cold Snap, Putrefaction


Giant enemy crab/bee: 3-turn cycle.  Some ability usage variance shown (priorities will be shown with a |# format)

Turn 0: Attack|4, Blasting Blow|5, (Negation|4 and Sweeping Blow|4 when below 40% HP)
Turn 1: Killing Scissor|5, Blasting Blow|5 (Negation|4 and Sweeping Blow|4 when below 40% HP)
Turn 2: Killing Scissor|5, Tremor Hammer|5(attacks one target for impact, reduces entire party's EVA.  SPI_F 60%) (Negation|4 and Sweeping Blow|4 when below 40% HP)

[AndrewRogue]

Spitting this out here for Kasia real quick: Cleansing -> Quick Fix: Physical Status Heal, Small HP Heal, Very Small SP Heal, Healblock, 50% CT. Makes it into a very nifty and flexible skill that is primarily used to heal physical status but comes with some sexy riders.

~~~~~~

Some quick accessory concepts.

Note to self: Talk to NEB/look around net re: ability to get equipment to change states.

1. We should include some baseline give/take style accessories (if possible). Somewhat small, but useful, boosts to normal stats and detriments to other useful stats. These could also be replaced with instead minor beneficial stat boosts.

These should likely be very simple offense/defense switch items. We could consider a speed/dex booster here, but it needs to be REAL give and take to even consider. A small Evade booster might also not be out of place.

2. Resistances. Nothing major (not like, Fire Immunity or even 50% damage reduction), but stuff to shave off enough damage to make it worth considering. Bleed jumps out as something that should definitely be considered for this.

Hm. Maybe... 20% resistance to an element? Useful, but not overwhelming, I think. Make sure we only make ones for elements with some actual presence.

3. Powerful effects that modify Stamina/Focus. This plays into Grefter's concepts. Again, this deals a lot with give and take, but it is something we should take advantage of since it plays with our system. This may, however, require the note about figuring out how to apply states via equipment.

[AndrewRogue]

Thinking more, we may want to cut to 1 Accessory Slot? Dunno. That's a toughie. Makes choice more restrictive, but more important. Thoughts are welcome here.

Now then, per my categories above, here are some rough additional ideas. Names still suck.

1. Stat Boosters!

Ferocity Charm: +15 Str, -7 Vit
Dissonance Charm: +15 Mag, -7 Spi
Health Charm: +15 Vit, -7 Str, -7 Mag
Soul Charm: +15 Spi, -7 Str, -7 Mag
Lucky Charm: +5% Eva

Pretty straightforward. Numbers prolly need tweaking. Defense oriented charms are done that way because they can be min/maxed pretty easy if it is just one axis. This may be desirable, but we should start with an even basis, first.

2. Resistances

Armor Reinforcement: Bleed Resistance 20%