Defensive Skills and all the problems I have with them

[lobster]

I think defensive skills (like status effects) have lots of potential for builds with the core concepts we have now, however with the current way they are implemented they can be unfun in various ways and could use some ironing out

heres every single problem that I could find with their design, though I'm sure theres some specifics I'm missing.

General Problems

They are by large very mundane
I think this one is important because it matters the most but it seems like PM is already cognizant of this and wanting to create more cool defensive skills as time goes on, as some identities like Mariachi Sinclair, Nailsault, Grippy Faust, and even the new Pierre Ryoshu has unique defensive skill effects.

I don't think every identity needs a cool effect on their defensive skill but just something to differentiate it somewhat. Even a simple coin amount rebalance would be enough to break away from the "standardization" they all currently have.

Defensive skills always interrupt resonance chains (excluding counter)
Makes going for a dodge or block even clunkier than it already is, making it even less favorable to choose to do a defensive action, even on a character who is theoretically built for doing defensive actions in a scenario where you can maximize keeping clash power with resonance rather than go for the defensive gimmick.

When enemies use them its unfun
I say this for two different reasons
1. When an enemy uses a counter outside of abnormality battles, you are always forced to take the unopposed attack versus them due to how clashing works in Limbus, taking guaranteed damage that can only be avoided through a hailmary-esque attempt to stagger the enemy. Otherwise it can only be planned around, not avoided, contrary to an enormous bulk of the standard gameplay loop. This issue not nearly as present in abnormality battles as it is in human battles due to being able to choose your clashing target.
2. When an enemy uses a shield or dodge, they are LARGELY gimping their action economy, essentially giving you a free turn and making the fight much much easier whenever they randomly decide to do so. (This is excluding enemies who explicitly are designed with this in mind with clear phases that they enter to always used them, such as the snake inquisitor with his passive phase)

Usually just better to prevent the damage entirely through winning clashes with attacks
This one really is kind of just a symptom of defensive skills being bad in the first place, and a reminder as to the fact that these defensive options are supposed to be competing with your normal sinners offensive skills. As of right now, most characters will only ever use a defensive skill if they are
-bricked with two S1s,
-guaranteed to lose the clash,
-dont have resources for ego
all of which combine to exceedingly rare circumstances to use them

I think its plausible, and fine (though i disagree with it) that they at some point tried to play around with the idea of having some identities have bad defensive skills as a sort of balance lever, evidence being the different defense levels on identities, but as it stands for 90% of identities thats already the case, and clearly wasn't what they were intending to do with the mechanic as a whole.


Now for the specifics

Counter

The damage is bad.
Self-explanatory, counter skills all use one dice. While some of them roll relatively high for that single dice, it simply being a single dice means its not going to be doing much damage back to the enemy at all, the most it could do is activate a stagger but not capitalize on itself like a normal multicoin skill would.

You are accepting a lot of damage using it
Leaving open a sinner to taking an unopposed attack is extremely dangerous, as damage in general is high for both players and enemies. An unopposed attack can easily lead into the sinner taking a huge chunk of damage, leading into the next point:

Getting staggered means your counter doesn't go off
This is halfway understandable as a means of giving counters an avenue to be dealt with on the enemies side but combined with the reason above this means usually counters are just the suicide button you press when you want shishmael to become better KK hong lu and nothing else because it wont do anything else

Unclear damage type
UI issue, particularly important for enemies using counters to give more information about which sinner to clash with if you were to interact with the counters.

My personal guess as to why counters suck overall is that PM was too afraid of making counters too good like they were in ruina so it was overnerfed

Dodge

Arguably the best defensive skill and the most functioning one, however I still have some issues with it that are shared with block skills

When it activates is unclear
Because of how dodge skills activate during its first clash, rather than the start of the round, your dodge skill can end up not being used for one sided attacks. Those scenarios are
-In human battles, when your low speed character is stuck clashing versus a low speed enemy and a higher speed enemy is attacking you
-In abnormality battles, when two enemies have two different speeds, and so is extremely unclear which one will attack first if your speed isn't higher than there's
The first is unavoidable and severely hurts the impact of dodge, and the second is a UI issue, but a pretty big one. Ideally the information should be as clear as possible to the player so that they can plan accordingly but its not given.

Block

Same issue as dodge, it activates late
See the above. What good is temporary hp if its not actually used? There is plausibility to stating this issue for both dodge and block was an oversight after a mechanics overhaul, read the Fun Fact!

Still receive on-hit effects
A pretty important one for a tank ability, despite being here to tank damage, you might actually end up taking more for yourself rather than if you just tried to prevent the damage all together by winning the clash

Needs multiple actions to have worthwhile temp hp
I believe this one is a numbers issue, because clearly PM doesn't want Mr. The Sun Made Me Do It solos of just him stacking 8 blocks and 1 offensive skill, so they want the block user to at least take some damage to slowly whittle him down, however the values as is are really low for a single block die and as with the previous problem, aren't worth it to block instead of just trying to win the clash.

Does nothing to defeating the enemy
Oh, the classic issue in games. What good is a tank if they don't progress towards the objective? Death is the best CC after all, and just like with healing, preventing the damage altogether at the source is inherently much more effective than reducing its impact. There needs to be a reason to block.

In Library of Ruina for example, the issue still existed but was eased with block dice progressing towards staggering the enemy by dealing the difference in power to their stagger bar. Blockma also existed, giving actual damage to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing. Limbus needs that reason, whether its raising stagger threshold, inflicting tremor on block, or anything else. It just needs something.

Fun Fact

Defensive skills used to have a niche of skipping your sinners turn in order to clash their target with another sinner. This may or may not have been intentional, as defensive skill oriented characters like Base Sault and Mariachi Sinclair have really low base speeds, which would have been able to take advantage of your allies skipping their turns to absorb the damage. This was removed in favor of making your sinner always clash with a target regardless of defensive skill usage, also likely causing block and dodge dice to activate late the way they do as a side effect.

On the bright side, that was the same patch that gave defensive skills the ability to redirect, which is a good thing! All thats left is for PM to remember to turbo buff base meursaults and mariachi sinclairs speed and watch them outspeed literally everyone.


wait till next time as i release a doctorate's degree worth of text for the current state of Limbus' status effects.

[A Wispy Willy]

Aren't speed dice stacked right to left for enemies?

On defensive moves in general though, they've all got their place. Block/Counter are much better than clashing against an attack you know you can't win, because every clash gives more damage to the enemy. My only issue is just that Sinners get only one of the three actions.

[SmallGespenst]

I do like both having the acknowledgement that the system changing means that only the skill slot in question can go against a specific enemy skill, so you can't offset attacks to other characters, while also saying "But when enemies use counters you're forced to take the hit" like you can't just use a defensive skill to not hit them, and waste the enemy counter as a result.

[A Wispy Willy]

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

I do like both having the acknowledgement that the system changing means that only the skill slot in question can go against a specific enemy skill, so you can't offset attacks to other characters, while also saying "But when enemies use counters you're forced to take the hit" like you can't just use a defensive skill to not hit them, and waste the enemy counter as a result.

Actually, the former feels like a misconception based on how human fights work since every skill will generally be accounted for one way or the other.

But as long as a skill has been "used", it doesn't require one-sided attacks. I've had poor N.Corp Faust get countered after clashing with Eerie Eyes and get turned to mincemeat.

[Zalgo]

This is the kind of criticism I love to see to help PM improve the game a good deal more.

I hope you are sending the details over to them via email though, they never read the Steam forums or the Subreddit. Gotta send them an email directly.

[DoT]

I would personally change it so the defensive skill used is turned into the affinity resource type of the skill it is being used over.

And make counters be able to ignore being staggered, and that way counters can have use to be able to ignore being staggered for taking the hit and keep fighting.

because as it stands, going full offensive to gain passive abilities and ego spamming resources is just way better then trying to play defensively in nearly all scenarios outside of some gimmicky solo fights.

[76561199181881511]

Originally posted by lobster:

-In abnormality battles, when two enemies have two different speeds, and so is extremely unclear which one will attack first if your speed isn't higher than there's
The first is unavoidable and severely hurts the impact of dodge, and the second is a UI issue, but a pretty big one. Ideally the information should be as clear as possible to the player so that they can plan accordingly but its not given.

In base of the testing i have done redoind railway again and again. and fighting with the redirect not working -.-

This are my finding:
-Speed of the enemy is right to left, with right the highes and lef the slowest.
this is similar to normal battles, and is in part how skills activates.
-HOWEVER, they do in GROUPS, each group being of a diferent par.
So they go by BODY PART, from right (fastest) to left(slowest)
-AND, inside a group they go from LEFT TO RIGHT.

So, if you want to use dodge BEFORE ANYTHING target the left most skill, IF you have higher speed than the fastes enemy skills, Otherwise said skills will hit you first.
in draws your SINNER go first. (not super sure, as every time i test it does so,yet havent test enough)

TLDR:
Skills are grouped by body part.
Take each body part as its own enemy.
From each group the action are taken Left most skill to right most.
if 2 body parts Draw, is the "fastes" (the group more on the right) wich go first.

For example Fish wilth all 3 speed, yuou will see as:
(slap1)(slap2)(slap3)(STRONG slap)(CANON)(Tail1)(Tail2)
action order will be:
(Tail1)>(Tail2)>(CANON)>(STRONG slap)>(slap1)>(slap2)>(slap3)
this will be in ALL defensive skills, as your own speed will change this order

[WEF CENSORSHIP 2030 FTW!!!]

Both Counter and Defense are almost completely useless. Only Evade works due to the obvious.

[A Wispy Willy]

Originally posted by "En marana domus nava crunatus":

Both Counter and Defense are almost completely useless. Only Evade works due to the obvious.

It's better to throw Block or Counters against a skill you can't beat. Clashes just make the enemy hit harder.

[【Silver】]

Conflicted with this, some points I feel are simply observation of poor management of your resources & actions during the game's basic combat loops or team composition.

Otherwise, the effort and such is greatly appreciated here. We indeed lost some autonomy with defensive skills once the they were revamped more or less. Also feel like 'Guard' skills should have a much higher base strength to help stack them up to what 'Counter' & 'Evade' can be used for. They shouldn't have as much of a wide range on their coin flip discrepancy considering the the comparative action it is. Considering you still take on 'Hit' effects, hopefully they can consider this when next looking at the current iteration of of defensive skills.

Also, I don't fully understand the 'Counter' UI issue, are you talking about damage typing for them?

[lobster]

Yeah, the "being forced to take the counter part" was a misconception based around the old way defensive skills wouldn't force clashes and so you would always end up attacking the countering enemy at some point in the chain no matter what you did, which isnt the case anymore


The Counter UI issue is indeed related to their damage type

Originally posted by gonzalo1432:

Originally posted by lobster:

-In abnormality battles, when two enemies have two different speeds, and so is extremely unclear which one will attack first if your speed isn't higher than there's
The first is unavoidable and severely hurts the impact of dodge, and the second is a UI issue, but a pretty big one. Ideally the information should be as clear as possible to the player so that they can plan accordingly but its not given.

In base of the testing i have done redoind railway again and again. and fighting with the redirect not working -.-

This are my finding:
-Speed of the enemy is right to left, with right the highes and lef the slowest.
this is similar to normal battles, and is in part how skills activates.
-HOWEVER, they do in GROUPS, each group being of a diferent par.
So they go by BODY PART, from right (fastest) to left(slowest)
-AND, inside a group they go from LEFT TO RIGHT.

So, if you want to use dodge BEFORE ANYTHING target the left most skill, IF you have higher speed than the fastes enemy skills, Otherwise said skills will hit you first.
in draws your SINNER go first. (not super sure, as every time i test it does so,yet havent test enough)

TLDR:
Skills are grouped by body part.
Take each body part as its own enemy.
From each group the action are taken Left most skill to right most.
if 2 body parts Draw, is the "fastes" (the group more on the right) wich go first.

For example Fish wilth all 3 speed, yuou will see as:
(slap1)(slap2)(slap3)(STRONG slap)(CANON)(Tail1)(Tail2)
action order will be:
(Tail1)>(Tail2)>(CANON)>(STRONG slap)>(slap1)>(slap2)>(slap3)
this will be in ALL defensive skills, as your own speed will change this order

good ♥♥♥♥ boss. I still hold my statement that this should needs to be more clear in the UI but at least its not proven to be inconsistent, it has rules that it adheres to that just need to be displayed better

[Bishop]

With cycling fixed defensive skills became even more useless if not straight harmful. Before I could use a defensive instead of a weak skills because it could be more preferable to avoid damage rather than doing a weak clash. The skill would be cycled in the process. Now game actively punishes player for doing so by keeping weak skill in queue for one more turn. Using defense pretty much equals wasting turn now.

[SpearOfLies]

I don't think defensive are the problem as they are right now.
Or at least not for block and evade. They are perfectly fine as they are now. (I don't mind if they get buffed regardless)
Counter probably need a revamp as it cost action economy for no chance to damage reduction and no guaranteed minor damage toward the attacker. But this is more easily solvable if they reduce the number of stagger from counter characters so they don't seem like they have a worse option for nothing.

As I already said on another thread about defensive skills, they aren't the problem. The problem is currently is way better to mitigate damage by winning clashes. Adding more effect to block and evade will not solve this issue. Block and evade will be more appealing when they are more enemies that are hard to clash against. I will just wait when they add more that kind of enemies in the game.

They are situation in the RR where you can make block and dodge shine even if they are too few:
- Dodge against the unclashable and cannot be redirected attack of KQE.
- Dodge or block against the Inquisitor to not eat the counterattack
- Block my form empties first turn after you killed his allies to have +40% extra damages in the followed turns.

In the current event you can make dodge shine by dodging the on hit spawn chicken and I also used it to dodge most of hit from the 4 coin attack to mitigate damage as I had no way to win or redirect it. This is the best event to make dodge character shine but people are too small brain/lazy to make use of it.

[A Wispy Willy]

Originally posted by Bishop:

With cycling fixed defensive skills became even more useless if not straight harmful. Before I could use a defensive instead of a weak skills because it could be more preferable to avoid damage rather than doing a weak clash. The skill would be cycled in the process. Now game actively punishes player for doing so by keeping weak skill in queue for one more turn. Using defense pretty much equals wasting turn now.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Defensive skills and EGOs still use up the skill they convert if they get used.

[【Silver】]

Originally posted by lobster:

The Counter UI issue is indeed related to their damage type

Is it not the Sin type that they give when used?
I always figured it was basically a 'neutral + sin' category of damage done to the target based on the Sin it produced.