Chain battles becoming the default

[Birp]

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/limbuscompany/comments/1ecsequ/full_transcription_of_the_livestream_if_you_care/

(20:19) Here. "Chain Battles as the default Battle format". "Chain Battles as the default Battle format". Why we felt this was needed was, so what chain battles are is if there's 12 people, if there's 6 people in combat, there'll be 6 people on standby, and if one dies, the next takes their place, right? Normally, if one dies and they don't get replaced, one character, one sinner dying was fatal.

(21:04) So, uh, ultimately, this sinner dying and getting refilled, this will give more opportunities to use more varied IDs and EGOs. And a constant dilemma was that we poured our heart into the animation of enemy attacks, but even if we made them, so, like if the player is good, they'll win clashes, clashes right? Then they won't see this animation. So forced unclashable attacks. We would have to add gimmicks like unclashable attacks, but then inevitably player frustration will rise.

(22:15) So, if sinners die after getting hit with fancy attacks like popopow and die, oh since sinners get refilled anyways, this will be utilized tactically and lower the hurdle of player frustration, and show fancy enemy animations. This is one of the biggest reasons why we're making chain battles the default battle format.

(22:48) Uh, so, maybe, like, starting from the 6.5-2 intervallo, and canto 7, and future mirror dungeons, all of them will be based on chain battles.

(23:12) So obviously we'll be testing and stuff, but during this refraction railway, this wasn't that bad, like player reaction wise and playtest wise, so we decided it'll be ok to try this out. But then so the buffs corresponding to deployment order, that won't be a thing. ...the bgm is off.

----

Thoughts?

I think it's good, since it means they can make more difficult/complex bosses, and its fair due to the fact you get to bring 6 extra units now.

[Dominic]

i also think its good. i like the idea of utilising my whole team rather then just having support buffs. it also makes more sense ingame too since all the sinners are fighting rather t hen a few of them jacking it in the bushes while half the team fights

[Joshua Kurayami]

Not a fan. Having chain battles means we are forced to get more than just the 6 IDs to fit in with the teams we use while also throwing people who have a thing for solo runs under the Mephistopheles (bus). Plus a lot of people have been complaining about the lack of certain resources that you get from the game, so that makes getting more IDs on the team even more awkward or until they end up deciding to just to throw in any random IDs that they have from whatever other teams they've been using.

[jobhobster]

Sure, why not. If this means instead of 3 stages with same enemies we get one stage with 3 waves of same enemies, it's pretty good, because it's less time spent for loading, and also it gives more usage for slow burn ID's, like poise guys, charge/self-tremor guys, you got the point.
Also it makes losing a sinner much less annoying, because look, there's another one replacing it already, that's awesome. It also allows for more difficult fights, while also being fair enough, because even if eg some abno wipes out your entire team, it will be replaced with another one, everyone having starting SP as well.
What I think they should do is allow to go into battle with less than 12 sinners, to keep solo content alive. Like, just a confirmation, when you choose less than 12 sinners, that "are you sure you want to do that?" thing.

[Snecchi]

you can also throw your weaker sinners under the proverbial bus, is there a mega death unclashable skill? just throw base ishmael at it or something. This might also dissuade them from designing future ID's around having 2 skill slots, since I can tell for a fact some ID's own gimmicks don't work unless they're taking double the actions (KK Rodion's terrible poise generation etc)

[jobhobster]

Originally posted by Snecchi:

just throw base ishmael at it or something.

Dante's ultimatum
It's Ahab!!!
So, what it will be?
Sinner? (Sneer)
Or
Whale? (Weil)
Have I truly became an Ahab?

[Dominic]

Originally posted by Joshua Kurayami:

Not a fan. Having chain battles means we are forced to get more than just the 6 IDs to fit in with the teams we use while also throwing people who have a thing for solo runs under the Mephistopheles (bus). Plus a lot of people have been complaining about the lack of certain resources that you get from the game, so that makes getting more IDs on the team even more awkward or until they end up deciding to just to throw in any random IDs that they have from whatever other teams they've been using.

how are you forced to get more then 6 id to fit with the team? you can have 2 seperate teams or use sinners that are strong on their own or fit certain conditions (like following up with a yisang after while having a status team go first. you also dont need to have anyone. i cleared railway while only using 2 units in the fight against binds meaning the other 4 extra slots werent used in the first place

[RedCobra]

its how supposed to be in day 1 lol. 12 sinner join battle.

[MasterP]

I like it, but considering that you cant build a full team of 12 sinners around any single archetype yet, i would rather not have chain battles too son.
Another concern is that it will put a lot of pressure in new players with levels and upties.
I also hope that we still get battles with more than 6 sinners at once.

[Joshua Kurayami]

Originally posted by Dominic:

Originally posted by Joshua Kurayami:

Not a fan. Having chain battles means we are forced to get more than just the 6 IDs to fit in with the teams we use while also throwing people who have a thing for solo runs under the Mephistopheles (bus). Plus a lot of people have been complaining about the lack of certain resources that you get from the game, so that makes getting more IDs on the team even more awkward or until they end up deciding to just to throw in any random IDs that they have from whatever other teams they've been using.

how are you forced to get more then 6 id to fit with the team? you can have 2 seperate teams or use sinners that are strong on their own or fit certain conditions (like following up with a yisang after while having a status team go first. you also dont need to have anyone. i cleared railway while only using 2 units in the fight against binds meaning the other 4 extra slots werent used in the first place

Because, well, obviously this doesn't apply to every status effect, but there's rupture, bleed and sinking that requires team synergy to make it all work. Losing one sinner and not having a backup that fits in with the team could lead to you throwing the game. Also just because railway was.. well, tolerable, doesn't mean future battles are going to be the same. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up with one of the bosses where they staggered your unit, but instead of making them useless, they just used your units against you... which, to be honest, was a missed opportunity to have with the Bongy chapter, considering the story involved people possessed by raw chickens. But, yeah, we could be dealing with IDs getting taken advantage of or even sacrificed just for the sake of whatever abnormality or story content we're dealing with.

[Birp]

Originally posted by Joshua Kurayami:

Not a fan. Having chain battles means we are forced to get more than just the 6 IDs to fit in with the teams we use while also throwing people who have a thing for solo runs under the Mephistopheles (bus).

Just because they are letting you use 6 extra units doesn't mean the fights will become hard enough that you will actually need them.

Unless they increase the difficulty by like 500%, 2-3 good 000 ids and 3-4 decent 00 ids will probably be good enough to clear anything.

But we have to see how things will play out. I don't expect a drastic difficulty increase, not at this point in time, more like a small/moderate difficulty increase once the chain system becomes the default.

[star platinum]

Im fine if they dont balance the battles around using this mechanic, because i dont like it at all.

Unfortunately i need to say goodbye to my 2 skill slots dark flame outis with this.

[Joshua Kurayami]

Originally posted by Birp:

Originally posted by Joshua Kurayami:

Not a fan. Having chain battles means we are forced to get more than just the 6 IDs to fit in with the teams we use while also throwing people who have a thing for solo runs under the Mephistopheles (bus).

Just because they are letting you use 6 extra units doesn't mean the fights will become hard enough that you will actually need them.

Unless they increase the difficulty by like 500%, 2-3 good 000 ids and 3-4 decent 00 ids will probably be good enough to clear anything.

But we have to see how things will play out. I don't expect a drastic difficulty increase, not at this point in time, more like a small/moderate difficulty increase once the chain system becomes the default.

I'm less worried about the difficulty increase, although, yeah I guess that is still a possibility, but more about future gimmicky battles where you have to actually kill off your IDs for abnormalities or story's sake, or have to actually fight your own team with whatever IDs and backup you have in your team.. and no I don't mean Envy Peccatulum but your sinners got mind controlled or some other similar gimmick. I mean in the livestream they did want to make Sinner deaths to be an acceptable loss and to also add more strategy to it, so having to intentionally bring out backup IDs feels like something they would do, which leads to that possible problem of having to at least have one or two backups to be IDs that, if it's something like a rupture/sinking team, then those IDs also have to be the same to not ruin the status team.

[Om3ga-Z3ro]

As a Default Sinner player, I welcome this.

[Dominic]

Originally posted by Joshua Kurayami:

Because, well, obviously this doesn't apply to every status effect, but there's rupture, bleed and sinking that requires team synergy to make it all work. Losing one sinner and not having a backup that fits in with the team could lead to you throwing the game.

by 2 teams i meant having for example a burn team with 6 sinners and the backup being say tremor or some sht. i did not mean 2 teams capable of doing rupture (or any individual status). you should NEVER lose because one sinner doesnt happen to synergize with your team either... what are you even talking about. at most it should just take you longer to clear. nor do i see how it would be worse then having a status team of 6 and having one die. in the case of having only 6 you still lose the synergistic sinner that is applying affects in addition to now being down one skill slot too vs the chain system where your other sinner will fill the gap and you wont lose a skill slot.

sure hyperspecifically in rupture and sinking comps a sinner taht doesnt apply those statuses filling in that dead slot might eventually burn through the stacks but its not as if your other sinners are suddenly useless... you are being way too over dramatic about it.

on the other hand a chain system can let you do neat things like set up a burn team innitally which applies a ton of burn and after a few turns just onesided attack everything so they die and new team that is (insert status here) comes in and layers their own status ontop of burn which isnt possible before

[Echo]

I'm really excited about this because I'm not very good I think, it should ease the burden of some upcoming difficult fights if 1 sinner dying doesn't mean my team is automatically at a disadvantage now. I do think that it should be an option to go in without backup so the solo players can still do their nightmare self imposed challenges, but it's something I myself would be using all the time especially in harder content.