More combat options?

[Rephath]

For most of the tutorial, I had my pick of two different moves I could use. When you introduced sidekicks, each move had two different variants, for a total of 4 moves. It made combat kind of stale and repetitive as I just ended up using the same pattern in each fight. I know interesting tactical options aren't exactly a staple of JRPG's, but I was wondering if there are there any plans to add more options in combat?

[76561199412091927]

Originally posted by Rephath:

For most of the tutorial, I had my pick of two different moves I could use. When you introduced sidekicks, each move had two different variants, for a total of 4 moves. It made combat kind of stale and repetitive as I just ended up using the same pattern in each fight. I know interesting tactical options aren't exactly a staple of JRPG's, but I was wondering if there are there any plans to add more options in combat?

Thank you for your comment. We also received some other feedback saying that the combat is way too easy, we'll see what we can improve on this part!

[Rephath]

It is too *easy* but it's also too *simple*. When I have two characters, my dominant strategy is to use the wind area attack and then the fire area attack and then mop up the stragglers, in pretty much every fight. In theory, I have four different attacks available, but there's never any point to healing and it's almost always better to use the area attacks, so I really only have 1 or 2 options per character.

It seems like you're late in development, and you've got most of a good game, so you're unlikely to revamp the combat system. But currently you offer no real strategic depth. Making the combat more difficult means that I have to hope the one strategy I have available works, and if it doesn't, I'll have to grind to get more powerful. But making it more difficult won't force me to get good, because there's nothing to get good at. I need depth.

[Francoimora]

Originally posted by Rephath:

It is too *easy* but it's also too *simple*. When I have two characters, my dominant strategy is to use the wind area attack and then the fire area attack and then mop up the stragglers, in pretty much every fight. In theory, I have four different attacks available, but there's never any point to healing and it's almost always better to use the area attacks, so I really only have 1 or 2 options per character.

It seems like you're late in development, and you've got most of a good game, so you're unlikely to revamp the combat system. But currently you offer no real strategic depth. Making the combat more difficult means that I have to hope the one strategy I have available works, and if it doesn't, I'll have to grind to get more powerful. But making it more difficult won't force me to get good, because there's nothing to get good at. I need depth.

Hi ! After the demo, you'll unlock more characters (3 mains, 3 assist in total) and the enemies will have custom behaviors forcing the player to adapt more to the situation. For example, you have a land with birds and their eggs and if you attack their eggs, they get strong attack buffs, forcing you to stop using group targeting skills (unless you can tank it).

Hope it'll match your needs !

[Rephath]

Originally posted by Francoimora:

Hi ! After the demo, you'll unlock more characters (3 mains, 3 assist in total) and the enemies will have custom behaviors forcing the player to adapt more to the situation. For example, you have a land with birds and their eggs and if you attack their eggs, they get strong attack buffs, forcing you to stop using group targeting skills (unless you can tank it).

Hope it'll match your needs !

Actually, I fought those birds in the demo. Here's how that fight usually breaks down for me:

I get attacked by a bird and two eggs. The initiative order is Syl, Bird, Mohang, Egg, Egg.

Syl goes first. I have her attack all targets, enraging the bird.

The bird goes next, dealing extra damage to Syl or Mohang

Moshang goes next and I have him attack all targets. All of them have been weak to at least one of the elemental attacks I've launched, so they're all broken now, and so I've got 2 turns to finish off anyone who isn't dead.


The alternative is for Syl to attack only the bird. Alto and Edson both give her this ability. I attack the bird, weakening it. It attacks one of us and does less damage than it did in the prior example. Moshang goes next and does an area attack, weakening everyone and breaking the bird's defense or killing it. The eggs go next and each get an attack off. From there, it's trivial to break or kill them, and the fight is over.

CONCLUSION
Unless an enraged bird can do more damage than an unenraged bird and two eggs, it's always better to use area attacks the same way I would with everything else. And unless that bird does enough damage to one-shot a character, I can win the fight quicker with area attacks. The robots are the same way: Syl damages everyone, dragonfly gets in an unstable hit, and then Moshang breaks everyone and I finish them off at my leisure.

Two area attacks always breaks or kills all enemies and usually only forces me to take a single hit in return from the faster enemy, two at the most. It is the ideal strategy in every encounter I played. Everything else I tried left me vulnerable to several attacks.

If you don't believe me, I encourage you to go back and play the demo again. As soon as you have both Syl and Moshang, in every fight, have her use the area wind attack and Moshang use area fire attack. Just those moves, in every fight. Never level up. Never eat food. Eventually, you meet Edson. There's a 50/50 chance he pairs with Moshang. In those fights, it's a 50/50 chance that area effect rock is more useful than area effect fire, so there's a 25% chance there will be a different strategy. And eventually he learns the area lightning attack, so you might have a third option. But even then, you're only choosing which flavor of area attack you're using. You can make the game more difficult if you want (and you should). But there's still very few strategic options available, and the best one is always an area effect attack. Making fights more difficulty doesn't solve that.

[Francoimora]

I can see what you are feeling. It's too late for such major changes in Terra Memoria but this is something we surely want to improve in the future. I think it won't be a problem for casual gamers but experienced JRPG players will surely find that the combat system is lacking some depth. Thanks for your feedback !

[Rephath]

Bummer. I like a lot of the things about this game. You've got so much good going on. You're not alone; this is a problem I have with many JRPGs.

Well, good luck to you. May you find your right audience and may they find you.