Debuffs were way underutilized

[Ratsplat]

If you didn't realize, the game actually has debuffs other than burn. Exhaust, curse, shackle, charm... But they are so infrequent that the tutorial is basically the only time you will ever see any of them (does anything other than the Tissuer even cause Curse?). And not only do they hardly exist, but with parrying and then late game with the prevention and curing, it's almost like there was almost no point to adding them in.

And by contrast it would have been very nice using these debuffs against enemies as well.

[Intern Waffle]

Debuffs are largely annoying as hell. I find this game strips out a lot of the "annoying as hell" aspects of RPGs and limits them to specific bosses, and one or two at a time. This is the curse boss. This is the charm boss. This is the invert boss. Etc.

[Ratsplat]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

Debuffs are largely annoying as hell. I find this game strips out a lot of the "annoying as hell" aspects of RPGs and limits them to specific bosses, and one or two at a time. This is the curse boss. This is the charm boss. This is the invert boss. Etc.

I can mostly agree that, despite being fairly simple, the combat is still very satisfying. And the inverse 'boss' was definitely a pain to get through.

Ironically, for me, the only reason the few rare debuffs actually felt a bit annoying was because, since they were so rare, I never once equipped anything to counter them.

[Intern Waffle]

I thought it was very nice having an anti-charm item available before Sirene which then could simply be slapped on everyone to completely cut her strongest mechanic out of the fight. A simple feedback loop rewarding exploration, but I liked it.

[Ratsplat]

Meanwhile, I ignored the Tissuer since 'hey, friendly Nevron, guess I'll ignore.' Then during fight, all it even did was give her like 2 or 3 shields every couple turns. But turns out it had anti charm.

Plus, in general, I noticed that debuffs and actually dangerous attacks tended to be the easiest to parry. And during the Sirene fight, the Charm parries were probably the easiest parries to complete.

[Brigadeos]

What i would argue is that only fire damage had a debuff or special effect with burn, instead of putting some effects on other elements. All the other elemental attacks are kinda irrelevant, but burn is used a lot. Maybe add some slow to the water and stun to earth, shock to lightning, whatever.

[Ratsplat]

Originally posted by Brigadeos:

What i would argue is that only fire damage had a debuff or special effect with burn, instead of putting some effects on other elements. All the other elemental attacks are kinda irrelevant, but burn is used a lot. Maybe add some slow to the water and stun to earth, shock to lightning, whatever.

Even burn seemed rather infrequent, which was probably a good thing since it always did a lot of damage even with only a stack of two on a character.