Current Events > RPGs that make bosses immune to all status effects piss me off

(+) Yeah! (+)

In 95% of them it almost never pays to poison/confuse/paralyze the average random battle fiend because you can kill them so fast if you go all out offense.

So then you think "hey these would probably be useful on the tough bosses"

But nope fuck you they're immune to everything.
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One thing FFXIII did right.
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I liked FFXIII's approach to statuses: most things are vulnerable to them, but usually not the totally debilitating ones (or if they are they have a low hit rate).
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My feelings exactly.

Yeah, I don't get that. Let me poison/blind/confuse you!
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Yeah, I rarely use any status effect moves in JRPGs. Unlike action RPGs where status effects on weapons can make all the difference.
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After about thirty years of this, you just sorta accept that debuffs and status effects are useless, and dogpile on the number porn instead.

So all but bad JRPGs piss you off.
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Irony posted...

So all but bad JRPGs piss you off.

Etrian is "bad"?

Poison helps a lot in Final Fantasy VII, but only with challenge runs because if you dont challenge yourself the game is petty easy
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Bad_Mojo posted...

Poison helps a lot in Final Fantasy VII, but only with challenge runs because if you dont challenge yourself the game is petty easy

Yeah VII is probably the easiest FF, which as a series tends not to be overly difficult to begin with.
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poison that maintains its threat until endgame is very rare, and that's silly to me. getting poisoned would rock anyone's shit, as that's kinda the point. you're not outleveling biology.

i think world of warcraft had the best ideas about poisons but i never played a rogue, only got murdered by them every now and then. the damage sneaks up on you, like it should.

one issue with status ailments is that they run the risk of being obligatory.

wouldn't you say the best feeling you get from using status ailments is that moment of holy shit it actually worked? i would. guides are a thing that games have to deal with, now more than ever, and status ailments that we know will work basically become either a win or an easy mode button, but even worse, they become optimal.

it got me thinking what i'd do. i wonder how a game with random and invisible status resistances might feel. you would at least start trying to silence mages.
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I think SMT does a good job with the press turn system and making where certain attacks have status effect based damage and thus cause status effects and do damage as well as possibly striking a enemies weak point.

Also, Final Fantasy Tactics
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Stupidest logic of rpgs. Youre completely vulnerable to them but the enemies arent? Da fk
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Lol i made a topic about this from a podcast I heard.

Whats worse? What TC listed or when a JRPG gives you a surprise final boss introduced to you 5 mins before the ending

Part of why I liked bravely default. The bosses are resistant to statuses but you can bypass that with some abilities and moves and you do many combos with them.
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CasualGuy posted...

In 95% of them it almost never pays to poison/confuse/paralyze the average random battle fiend because you can kill them so fast if you go all out offense.

So then you think "hey these would probably be useful on the tough bosses"

But nope fuck you they're immune to everything.

I mean, sure, on the easy square early nintendo games.

Status are pretty good in most RPGs. There was an entire job dedicated to just debuffing in FF13 and it was used constantly. The Doomtrain GF in FF8 as well as the Bad Breath Quistis limit break were super useful on every fight.

Paralyze / Confuse / Sleep / Silence is something that you can make a lot of use out of on most final fantasy games.
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One of the Shin Megami Tensei series' best features that buffing and debuffing are vitally important parts of boss battles, even when bosses can negate the effects.
Like, part of the reason Matador is such a road-block in Nocturne is because, at a certain point, he breaks out Red Capote, which maxes his hit and evasion, and breaks out the AOE damage. Even a well-prepared party has a narrow window in which to resolve the situation. For some one unaccustomed to buffing/debuffing being meaningful, it's a wake-up call.

Also,

I feel like most status effects are meant to provide another way to harm the player rather than direct damage, and thus I can kinda see why a designer might just make a boss immune to status effects.
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CruelBuffalo posted...

Lol i made a topic about this from a podcast I heard.

Whats worse? What TC listed or when a JRPG gives you a surprise final boss introduced to you 5 mins before the ending

*Looks at Necron*
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Bosses should only be immune to statuses that can completely prevent action (Sleep, Stun, etc.) but other stuff like Poison, Silence, or whatever can still work on them. Maybe make those other statuses have a reduced chance to work, but don't make the boss completely immune to them.
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I just beat FF9 and most bosses are effected by some statues. A couple can even be made into a complete joke by inflecting silence and blind. Almost every boss can be affected by slow, though I didn't bother because it wears off so fast.

I guess there's always FF6, where Vanish+Doom=Win!

That only works in the original SNES version.

Mega Man Battle Network has been one of my biggest inspirations for my game.

In 3, I think it was, there are these late-game enemies called Protectos or something like that, and these mofos have hundreds of HP. Which, isn't that unusual, except that they instantly heal all damage unless they're all reduced to 0 at the same time.

There's no chip you can use to defeat them, and you certainly can't kill them with the buster. Your only option is to take advantage of synergies.

Use a sword, longsword and widesword together to make a lifesword, which will deal 200 damage to enemies nearby. That'll work for one set. Others are tougher. Use grass stage to double your fire damage, then combine a heatgun, heatv and heatside for a 300 damage heatspread with aoe. That'll deal 600. But even that won't cut it for the last bunch, which have a whopping 850 (IIRC) HP. I honestly don't even remember what all I had to do to defeat those.

Why can't status effects be the same way? Why do they have to just fail against bosses? Maybe the boss resists a normal stat cast but falls victim to a buffed cast. Maybe you can do multi-character combo moves to get extra effectiveness. Maybe you can totally instant kill the final boss, but the process of setting it up is so complicated and risky that it's a matter of opinion whether it's a better option than just beating it to death.
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fenderbender321 posted...

And if a boss is immune to status effects, it's usually only one of them which means you have to keep wasting turns guessing if it's confuse, sleep, etc until you've wasted so many turns that you die.

Or, never bother, and just comfortably slip into the buff/beatown/heal cycle.

I never use status effects because of this lol
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For the most part, status effects exist in those games solely to be used on the player to annoy them
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Etrian Odyssey (for the most part) did it best. You can inflict status on every enemy that isn't a OHKO level of op like instant kill or petrify. But then bosses gain immunity to status that's already been inflicted, and there are skills in place to combat that too but at a big cost.
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Try this:

Many bosses are susceptible to status effects, however, most use a recovery move afterward.

Also, players can equipped status invulnerabllility, so surely bosses can

i like the idea of allowing stuns and sleeps to work on bosses because then you'd have to give something to those bosses to justify something that strong, like a wind-up move that you hope and try to interrupt that way or else.
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yeah I didnt like this either. at least make them highly resistant and set to recover after a period of time so there is even a point to having them in the game. also I hate it when death never works against any if the enemies where it would be helpful
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also I hate it when death never works against any if the enemies where it would be helpful

vagrant story nailed this.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

After about thirty years of this, you just sorta accept that debuffs and status effects are useless, and dogpile on the number porn instead.

Disgaea is probably the one game where status effects can be super powerful, even at a low level. Poison is OP.
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ElatedVenusaur posted...

One of the Shin Megami Tensei series' best features that buffing and debuffing are vitally important parts of boss battles, even when bosses can negate the effects.
Like, part of the reason Matador is such a road-block in Nocturne is because, at a certain point, he breaks out Red Capote, which maxes his hit and evasion, and breaks out the AOE damage. Even a well-prepared party has a narrow window in which to resolve the situation. For some one unaccustomed to buffing/debuffing being meaningful, it's a wake-up call.

thats the one i noticed he would use the spell to cancel debuffs if i used a nda spell on him but he would take a few turns to do it if i used another skill to debuff him like fog

not sure if other bosses did the same
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Calwings posted...

Bosses should only be immune to statuses that can completely prevent action (Sleep, Stun, etc.) but other stuff like Poison, Silence, or whatever can still work on them. Maybe make those other statuses have a reduced chance to work, but don't make the boss completely immune to them.

Or maybe they can have reduced effectiveness? Like Silence wipes out a portion of a spell list or Poison does half DOT or something? Or in turn based battles they last for less turns? I think that's a decent medium.

Bad_Mojo posted...

Poison helps a lot in Final Fantasy VII, but only with challenge runs because if you dont challenge yourself the game is petty easy

Bio in FFX is fucking lethal.

And even though it's a CRPG, Pillars of Eternity has one of the best debuff systems I've seen. Every enemy and character has four defenses that determines chance to be hit: deflection (physical abilities/auto attacks), reflex, fortitude, and will. Each defense is affected by two of the seven attributes (deflection is affected by one). Each ability targets one of these defenses.

Here's the main thing: you can create a chain of debuffs allowing abilities that had low chances of hitting to succeed.

For instance: Flank the target with two characters which reduces their deflection -> Hit enemy with knockdown which targets deflection -> Target is proned which reduces reflex -> Hit target with a reflex targeting ability that reduces will defense -> hit target with a vs. will defense ability.

Enjoy your thoroughly debuffed target. Spells and abilities could also graze which has a lessened duration so at least you got something and also critically strike increasing the debuff duration.
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SH_expert44 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

After about thirty years of this, you just sorta accept that debuffs and status effects are useless, and dogpile on the number porn instead.

Disgaea is probably the one game where status effects can be super powerful, even at a low level. Poison is OP.

Still pales in comparison to number porn.

Though, status effects do tend to have more useful purpose in 'grid' type games.

Pancake posted...

poison that maintains its threat until endgame is very rare, and that's silly to me. getting poisoned would rock anyone's shit, as that's kinda the point. you're not outleveling biology.

i think world of warcraft had the best ideas about poisons but i never played a rogue, only got murdered by them every now and then. the damage sneaks up on you, like it should.

one issue with status ailments is that they run the risk of being obligatory.

wouldn't you say the best feeling you get from using status ailments is that moment of holy shit it actually worked? i would. guides are a thing that games have to deal with, now more than ever, and status ailments that we know will work basically become either a win or an easy mode button, but even worse, they become optimal.

it got me thinking what i'd do. i wonder how a game with random and invisible status resistances might feel. you would at least start trying to silence mages.

Poisom though doesnt always affect all beings. Like whats poison to a dog isnt to me. That was the weird part in 13 though. Poison worked on whats basically a god....
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fair points -- i do think for the sake of convenience that a catch-all poison should work, but maybe not against gods. or ghosts. or robots. if it has a circulatory system, poison should hurt it.
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It's not just RPGs but most games in generally dont bother balancing around status effects.

Monster hunter world is a good example.
Paralysis(for melee weps): isnt very good outside 4 main groups. And most para weps stat wise are compete garbage aside from 2 or 3.

Poison: is garbage becuase it only deals 10-20 ticks of damage which is useful in low rank, but by endgame it's not doing s*** to monsters with tens of thousands of hp.

Bomb: Good in low and high rank but with its specific builds to function by endgame and even then it cant compete against pure damage sets.

Sleep(melee): only useful in groups becuase sleep weps are bottom of the barrel garbage stat wise. Hell this applies to most status weps in general. Which is sad becuase a high atk, and sharpness values could make up for alot of these statuses downsides.
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