A few things that need to change

[stratzilla]

- Let us take multiple sidequests at once. Having to go back to the agency to turn in quests one-at-a-time and only being able to do one-at-a-time amounted to like 99% of backtracking in CS.

- Rotate quests on quest board rather than keep them until completed. I had to do so many garbage fetch quests just to make room for the potential of a hacker fight quest to appear. If quests instead revolved as they became available, you could avoid the trash.

- Look at Survive's treatment of evolution: there was an upkeep cost to evolving making you think about risk vs. reward. In CS, you can evolve willy-nilly without any downsides. This is probably not possible if they're going for a similar battle system but ABI is headache inducing so I hope they find some way to make evolution/degeneration factor into gameplay.

- Hire someone who knows something about menu optimization and keystroke level model. Whoever greenlit how menus are organized and nested in CS needs to be fired. It takes way too many button presses to do anything, even routine stuff.

[MarcusBWFC]

1. prob not a good idea, since theyre all storyline stuff.

3. this is not survive, its the 7th story game. theyre not changing it now.

[stratzilla]

Originally posted by MarcusBWFC:

1. prob not a good idea, since theyre all storyline stuff.

3. this is not survive, its the 7th story game. theyre not changing it now.

Maybe not all of the sidequests, but those "retreive Somebody's property" quests? There's no reason we shouldn't be able to pick up >1 at a time other than padding the game.

While true, I think ABI needs a giant overhaul. Some upper level evolution tied to events or items is a start, relying on prestiging Digimon to get ABI takes too long and is a grind.

[Blk_Mage_Ctype]

THANK YOU!

I'm currently playing Cyber Sleuth and it is so horribly tedious only being able to take one fetch quest at a time. If I must go out of my way to go searching for some Digimon's lost item over and over again in the same exact location, then at least let me take all of the requests at once so that I can pick up every lost item in that area while I'm there rather than having to pointlessly leave, go back to the requests board to complete it, take another, rince and repeat.

Which reminds me, a request ought to be rightfully considering COMPLETE once the terms of the request have been fulfilled. I shouldn't need to return to board to complete a request to retrieve a lost item AFTER it has already been returned to its rightful owner.

[Spartytheknight]

Open battles like next order and no loading screens please

[leo_gear]

Would be interesting if they tried to go an upkeep route for the battle system...like if ABI was an actual stat like MP that depletes while on the battle field and replenishes while in the back lines. Higher evos deplete ABI faster than lower ones and you can have new buffs/debuffs that affect ABI regeneration...would really only play a part in tougher fights tho, as ABI could reset to max after each fight.

[CyclonefernoX]

I'm going to push back against the suggestion of adopting Survive's evolution drain mechanic.

For one, the way it was implemented in Survive made it effectively a non-factor since the tactical RPG side of things was very underdeveloped, so chances were good you finished fights before coming close to running out the meter if you went immediately for your highest level. You also rarely if ever wanted to use anything below your highest level evolution since more often than not they were a direct upgrade, and the cases in which you didn't were down to utility like Labramon's heal and Crowmon's extra movement.

(It also only applied to the partner Digimon and didn't extend to Wild Digimon where evolution was permanent.)

Evolution also isn't meant to have any downsides in the story games, rather it's used as a means of pacing your Digimon's progression. It allows the game to gradually introduce you to more skills and abilities, and the branching evolutions found in most story games are there to encourage you to experiment and customise your Digimon to your liking. It's an element of the gameplay in preparing you for battle, not as a tool to be used in battle.

[leo_gear]

Originally posted by CyclonefernoX:

I'm going to push back against the suggestion of adopting Survive's evolution drain mechanic.

...

You're definitely not wrong. I think it's a common consensus that Survive's combat system was half-baked. But I think the SP drain was one of the better dynamics. The upkeep can be a factor if your difficulty isn't in the crapper. For example, I think the easiest way to regulate difficulty so it wouldn't become too easy was to just limit how many units I used per battle. With a limit of 3 units (unless more are forced), the battles can require a bit of prep and tactics and SP can run out (also, levels weren't a runaway case of overpowering every foe).

As you mentioned, there are some strategic uses for previous evolutions, another one being Triceramon, Anylamon and others who can restore HP/SP at the end of their turns. Considering some situations where you need to move to the next enemy, getting a couple turns to get some healing can be a boon.

If done properly, the different evolutions would have their own perks that you can tactically use. Like, there just were no attacks that repositioned the unit like a charge attack or a flying attack that bypasses body block.

All in all, I think one of the major flaws, not with Survive but with Digimon as a whole, is the de-emphasis of previous evolutions despite having access to them. By comparison, in games like Pokemon, you can technically use 1st stage mon to beat the game if you wanted to...but it's never the case that you're beating the game with rookies or champions. I don't think Digimon has to emulate Pokemon in that regards, but giving more purpose to previous evolutions instead of just being a path to the last stage is what made Survive's system a cool system over all.

[CyclonefernoX]

Originally posted by leo_gear:

All in all, I think one of the major flaws, not with Survive but with Digimon as a whole, is the de-emphasis of previous evolutions despite having access to them. By comparison, in games like Pokemon, you can technically use 1st stage mon to beat the game if you wanted to...but it's never the case that you're beating the game with rookies or champions. I don't think Digimon has to emulate Pokemon in that regards, but giving more purpose to previous evolutions instead of just being a path to the last stage is what made Survive's system a cool system over all.

Highlighting the last section since I generally agree that the mechanic is worth exploring and can be executed well, though my initial comment wouldn't make that apparent.

I find it interesting that you'd use pokemon as an example given that, as far as the single-player campaign is concerned, evolution is almost always a straight upgrade and earlier stages become obsolete. There are some exceptions, like Scyther only changing its type and stat distribution going into Scizor, but the overwhelming majority are stepping stones to the last stage.

I would agree that earlier forms should have more of a role in the final build of a Digimon though. Even if we don't go down the in-battle evolution path, having something worthwhile to pass on that isn't made obsolete by later evolutions would be a plus.

I would personally be in favour of a trait/ability inheritance system like in World DS, but modified to make earlier stages not obsolete. It all depends on the execution of course, but it'd make your journey to mega more important, rather than the destination.

[leo_gear]

Originally posted by CyclonefernoX:

Highlighting the last section since I generally agree that the mechanic is worth exploring and can be executed well, though my initial comment wouldn't make that apparent.

I find it interesting that you'd use pokemon as an example given that, as far as the single-player campaign is concerned, evolution is almost always a straight upgrade and earlier stages become obsolete. There are some exceptions, like Scyther only changing its type and stat distribution going into Scizor, but the overwhelming majority are stepping stones to the last stage.

I would agree that earlier forms should have more of a role in the final build of a Digimon though. Even if we don't go down the in-battle evolution path, having something worthwhile to pass on that isn't made obsolete by later evolutions would be a plus.

I would personally be in favour of a trait/ability inheritance system like in World DS, but modified to make earlier stages not obsolete. It all depends on the execution of course, but it'd make your journey to mega more important, rather than the destination.

I think the reason that it's a bit unique for Pokemon is because the moves are varied to be more tactical. They don't require straight stats to be effective all the time, you can create strategies to bolster a non-min/max form to make up for it. You can even have a level 1 pokemon take down a lvl 100 with a particular niche set-up.

I look at Cybersleuth's moves and lament that they have so many unique skills but most don't do anything unique at all...just the animations. If I were trying to make all the evolutions in a line have merit but still make the pinnacle have the best potential, I'd create a system where each digimon's unique skill has an "upgrade slot" that you can add effects to and for each slot used, it multiplied the cost to use. If a Rookie or Champion's signature attack cost 12 MP, having a few upgrades to add to its effects (like boosting attack, granting counter, recover HP, etc) would get a move that costs 60, for an Ultimate with a skill that costs 25 MP would get a cost of 120+MP and if a Mega's unique skill cost 110 MP, they'd get skills that cost 600+ MP. Of course, the Mega and Ultimate's skills would have more base damage, but using those slots can be as much a detriment to the base skill than just leaving the slots empty. It'd be like a bridge to close the gap a bit but not completely.

[The Eternal]

Agree with 1 and 4 but I love the unfussiness of evolution so please no messing with that - we have the other games for complexity.

[小龙马]

I do hope the stats farming doesn't have a limit(or at least a higher limit) unlike the predecessor.

eg. In CS; betamon is an INT attacker, even with the farm training, its physical attack can only go so hi and still wouldn't be a great physical attacker. I do love to be able to make my favourite digimon accordingly.

[Kobi Blade]

Originally posted by The Eternal:

Agree with 1 and 4 but I love the unfussiness of evolution so please no messing with that - we have the other games for complexity.

Agree, OP is playing the wrong game.

His suggestion has no place in the Digimon Story, he should be playing Digimon World instead.