Endgame Fights So Frustrating (And Lengthy Thoughts)

[Xedek]

So, let me start out by saying I've been singing the praises of this game. It is SO good. I've found it exceptionally well designed and balanced, often challenging and strategic without ever feeling unfair.

I've nearly completed the game, and I'm currently trying to finish up the Legendary Keeper battles.

Man, did this go from exciting and fun to "throw the controller at the wall" fast. There are SO many chance based mechanics that it feels like the fights are just rolling the dice until they come up in my favor. Do the DoTs land, or don't they? Am I going to miss that important crit? Is my dodge going to kick in when I need it to?

I just started a fight, and on enemy turn 1, my monster with Spellshield/Agility/Barrier and 4K hp went down in one turn, just because the enemy rolled solid crits on him (no weakness).

The most frustrating part is that (at least currently in the Keeper fights) I miss SO much. I've never had an issue with attacks missing the entire game. You'd see the occasional creature with evade abilities, but it wasn't a problem. Now, it "feels" like I miss 50% of the attacks I make in many of the Keeper Duels. I can shuffle the lineup, try different teams, etc, but it seems like the dice play just as big a roll in the fight as any strategy.

This is compounded by the sheer number of fights that have strong shield/heal mechanics, so if you don't hit hard enough you don't make a dent. Plus, Aging teams that need to go down as fast as possible.

Now, I'm currently (slowly) progressing through the Legendary Keepers. But, I'm doing that by just repeating the battles over and over until chance is on my side.

Part of the problem feels like the first turn mechanics of keeper battles. Because I only get two turns on round one I always feel like I'm starting out in recovery mode. With only two attackers, I often can't make a meaningful attack that isn't just shielded or healed away with no impact. So I focus on throwing early shields and buffs instead. However, then the enemy team gets a full round and I soak a fully buffed / combo'd Ultimate that shreds my lineup.

In the story line Keeper Duels, it felt like I was making tactical choices. Countering, Adapting. I never lost a single duel. The Legendary duels don't feel like that. It's more about finding the perfect team to counter, or just hoping the dice come up lucky. My choices in the battle don't feel like they matter as much.

The chance mechanics seem to become an increasing problem as you progress. The gaps and disparities start out small, but seem to grow and specialize over time. Early on, a 10% chance to crit or an 8% chance to evade isn't going to have a huge battle impact. Your Nightwing might get some bonus damage, or evade a hit here or there. Buffs and Debuffs are helpful and can sway a battle.

Endgame, a 50% chance to dodge can swing wildly in either direction, making a fight much easier, or a complete loss. Your Nightwing might be untouchable, or it might be wiped off the map in one opening critical. Buffs and Debuffs are spammed all over the place and a Thanatos bleed critical can clear a full health bar in one hit.

Rather than being "consistently moderately impactful", you see extreme swings, often on a dice roll.

For example, turn one, I can throw an attack. I might crit, and be able to quickly take one of them out. If I don't crit, I'm not sure I can do enough damage to break the shield wall. Or, I can Glory, but if miss outright on Turn 2 I've wasted even more time. All I am doing here is playing the odds, in a way that can potentially decide the fight in the early rounds. Potentially, Glory is going to have a much longer DPS over time, - but thats assuming they don't crit down my attacker before he can do anything, or that it doesn't get buff purged. There is SO much chance involved. Do I Protect on Targoat on the expectation of single target attacks, or Shield in case of AoEs?

Some of this can be countered using Pokemon style typing, but this doesn't feel great either. After the first fight, I often have an idea of what will counter that team in terms of types, attack style, etc. But, this doesn't seem terribly strategic. I find out what thing I need to win and go get it. It can be a bit grindy, and is a step or two above a basic fetch quest.

Sorry for the long book. I talk a lot. Just a train of thought. All that given - the story playthrough was stellar, and I intend to keep playing. I'm off to throw myself at the Keepers again.

[Gilver Redgrave]

Well you pretty much explained the problem right away tho which is you depend on luck way to much. I never had a problem with chance based mechanics. So yeah if you use chance based mechanics prepare to figth a battle multiple times until the odds are in your favor.

The other problem is that you seem to have problems with heal/buffs/shields. Are you doing it ? Unlike Pokemon fights in Monster Sanctuary are won by outsupporting the enemy instead of dealing more damage. A Team with 1 Support/1 Heal/1Dd has higher chances of winning then a team with 1heal/2DDs. It can be dont with 2 DDs yes but that requires strong synergys like 2 Shrooms and 1 Troll for example where the Shrooms deal poison stacks while debuffing the enemy and the Troll just smaches the enemy.


The thing about Monster Sanctuary is that you need to find Monsters that work well with each other while having minimal counters.


Also about first turns.
Your first turn in a Keeper duel should always be used for buffing/shielding yourself up unless youre 100% sure you can take out 1 Monster of the enemy right away without losing one yourself once the enemys turn begins. After that your second turn is debuffing/buff removal aswell as getting damage in that way youre always ahead unless you made a mistake. Going first is actually in your favor.

[Xedek]

Please see above where I mentioned that I normally Shield/Buff turn one. :) (Long post, I know, and I may not have explicitly said that)

Yes, I've seen the importance of shielding and buffing, and generally run a standard balanced team, heal, support, damage, etc.

I'm just not sure what mechanics DON'T rely on chance? Many DoT abilities like Kindle are chance based. Dodges, criticals, even a basic chance for attacks to hit. I'm sure there are some, I was just saying that by endgame there are a lot of dice rolling, one way or another.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say it's BAD. Some folks probably enjoy that type of prep and counter play. I personally found it frustrating and a big shift from the rest of the game.

The rest of the game felt like it could be completed using your favorite mix of monsters, whatever that was, as long as you played well. I love that every single monster is unique and meaningful. Chance felt impactful but not wildly random. As opposed to these fights, where you might not be able to use a certain team, need to counter build, and a turn one lucky crit roll can drop a monster outright.

That's all.

[Gilver Redgrave]

As far as i am aware chances are:
- Evasion
- Crit

thats it.

There are other chances however those are a Monsters ability in the skill Trees like a chance of inflicting a Debuff multiple times with 1 attack. And thats what i meant with counter play. Once you know what creatures potentialy have which chances you counter it. If a Monster has high evasion for example use a Monster that has an attack that "cant be evaded". If the enemy has a crit beast just stack Evasion/Shield or lower its accuracy.


Chances are in every game in this game however they are extremely player made. You can always affect your and the enemys chances.


Also i dont know where youre at right now or which ones you already defeated but the Legendary Keepers will high likely force you into playing different Monsters. There are two of them that made me not just switch 1 Monster but my entire team. Keep your eyes out for that damn Aging guy hes a real pain in your behind.

[aquatorrent]

To be honest i also got stuck with the legendary keepers and couldnt find a right build myself. I ended up using other builds that people suggested and i beat them easily (i played in normal so it might be different on higher difficulty). There might be difference between a very good team and a good team, but i also admit that i didnt use any food or forged my unique items when i tried them with my build.

[Gilver Redgrave]

I would certainly advice the use of food. Thats ALOT of stats youre literally wasting for no reason.

[Xedek]

The real point I was making, was that the importance of chance swings wildly from the start of the game to the end.

At the start, there is almost no chance involved. There is (generally) no evasion or miss chance, most of the early abilities are like Ignite that always apply a single stack. If I am fighting a boss, my Magmapillar uses Ignite. I have a very reliable indication of what will happen. The enemy will be hit and receives one stack of Burn.

As the game progresses, many Debuff abilities are like Kindle, applying a 10-15% chance on hit to Debuff. If I am running a Debuff team, my Arcane Bolt might apply 4 stacks of Burn in one go - or might apply zero. I might see Spellshield, with a 20% chance for a hit to miss. The damage variance of the attack is increased and harder to predict. The harder it is to predict the outcome of your choices, the more strategy goes out the window.

By the endgame, the amount of variables has skyrocketed. I might be using multi-hit attacks, with a chance to apply a variety of different Debuffs (or not). I might throw multiple stacks of Burn and Chill in one go, or none at all. Critical hits become a larger factor, as both crit chance and damage tend to be much higher because of more passives and upgraded equipment. Buffs and Debuffs like Spellshield, Agility, Blind, are all over the place, being not only applied much faster but also being Purged / Restored faster. Evasion abilities are more common in general. In the last Keeper fight I did, I used a 6x Solar Ray and all six hits missed (without blind - only 20% spell shield on target). My attack might deal no damage at all. A few hits might land, or all 6. Each hit has a 15% chance to Burn, which means even if the attacks land, I might get multiple stacks of Burn, or zero stacks. The roll of the dice simply has a much bigger impact on the fight.

In other game language (like Diablo, etc), I would explain it as an early game weapon dealing 40-50 damage. Consistent, reliable, generally predictable. You know what you are going to get. Then, a late game weapon dealing 0 - 100 damage. The variance is simply much greater, which means fights are more likely to be sweeps or wipes.

It isn't necessarily harder, or more strategic. Simply more random, with higher variance.

Can it be mitigated in some ways? Sure. Like aquatorrent mentioned above, you can google "the right team" and the fight suddenly becomes vastly easier. But - my point - is that isn't really much in the way of strategy.

As I mentioned, for most of the game you can build whatever team you personally like. Crit Bleed, Debuff, all slimes, whatever. With some decent strategy, good monsters that work together, I can sweep the early game (with difficulty at some points, but it is DOABLE). Strategy is required, but "all monsters are valid", experimentation is encouraged.

Endgame, my choices with the majority of teams suddenly don't matter, as they can't bust the opponent Keeper. I have to pick the right build that will nullify that particular fight. The wide open field of choices suddenly becomes "Find the right solution, from these few possible winning options". I've browsed the forums, and seen several posts from stuck players where the solution is "google the right team to use".

Again, I'm not arguing good or bad. Just commenting that to me it feels like a sudden hard shift in game play at the end, which I don't particularly enjoy personally.

[nobalkain]

Problem is if you dont add in an element of Chance into a Turn Based Game like this then it just boils down to getting the correct set up and its an auto win. That or Grind till your numbers are bigger then their numbers. Its honestly the only way to give an illusion of difficulty.

[Otato]

The Legendary Keepers are obnoxious and some of them are absolutely more difficult fights than anything short of Wanderer. I think they're fine as they are, though, since they're post-game challenges for people who want to overcome some much more dangerous fights than the story should require. They're supposed to be much more demanding.

The least RNG mechanics in the game are probably Age and Tether. Age is a % bonus to offence, defence and mana regeneration, and will stack infinitely at 1 stack per turn. It can't be removed by your opponent short of your monster being outright killed. Tether reduces the enemy dodge chance and damage output, and is removed at a flat rate of 1 stack per turn, short of specific healers who can remove stacks more quickly. Building around these will definitely make for the most 'stable' sort of team.

There are a few attacks that 'cannot be dodged'- as Gilver mentioned- which will ignore the dodge and spellshield buffs as well as enemy innate dodge chance, although they can still be forced to miss by Blind stacks, so it's not quite a complete escape from RNG. Same for Sure Strike, which is the passive that will make it so the first hit of an attack will gain boosted damage and be unable to be dodged (again, blind is still a problem, it'll be important to have a healer who can remove 'stacks' specifically to deal with it if you want an anti-RNG team).

There are also a few Unique Auras that can reduce some of the more powerful RNG things in the game. Namely "Stunned" (Shock debuff on the enemy reduces their Dodge and Crit chances), "Weapon Break" (Armour Break reduces critical chance) and "Buff Corruption" (Weakness reduces the strength of enemy buffs and stacks, including the RNG ones). If you're going to use these, definitely go for the moves that aren't just chances to apply the corresponding debuff, but rather guarantees. Voltage to ALWAYS apply 1 shock + maybe more with passives, etc.

Maybe this will help with building an Anti-RNG team? I'm not sure if this is entirely what you were looking for, but you did mention not knowing which mechanics don't rely on chance, so hopefully this helps with that at least.

[Xedek]

Hey folks, first of all, thanks to everyone for constructive discussion and suggestions. I've put the game down for now because the frustration level is just too high, when I could be doing other non-frustrating things.

Let me elaborate on my thoughts on RNG in this game a little further.

Let me use the XCOM series as an example. It is well known for its RNG mechanics (missing a 95% chance to hit) - and I LOVE XCOM. The thing is, even though there is always a chance for something to swing better or worse (miss, crit, etc) there are ways to strategically adapt and mitigate. I can make calculated risks, or avoid them altogether. If something does go wrong, it might slow me down, force me to fall back, heal, etc. It generally doesn't mean restarting the mission. RNG exists, bad luck happens, but I can plan for it. When it does happen, I rethink my strategy and keep going. In XCOM, there is never a mission that you can win simply by charging forward and getting lucky with the dice.

Now, to use an opposite example, think about a FPS deathmatch game that decides to be realistic by having the weapons randomly jam. If two players meet, one might randomly experience a weapons jam, leaving him helpless as the other player kills him. There is no strategy or adapting, you just died because of bad luck and roll of the dice. (Another good example of this is the Tripping mechanic from Smash Bros. Brawl It was utterly random, could completely decide a tournament match, and people hated it.)

Doesn't sound fun, right? The second example is what this feels like currently. There is often no recovering from a string of bad luck. If you whiff on the first turn, you lose critical time as the enemy team stacks up Age, buffs, etc. A single critical on turn one can knock a monster out, probably deciding the fight. There is no strategy, no adapting. If the enemy rolls a multi-crit on the first turn... you are done. There is no room for recovery. Time to restart the fight.

I'm not against RNG in general, I don't think it shouldn't exist. I was just making the point that with this game, RNG is barely a factor at all through most of the game, but in these endgame fights there are SO many chance based effects that the dice play as much of a role in success as actual strategy. I don't like that. My 2 cent feedback.

[Gilver Redgrave]

I really dont know why your RNG is so bad to a point where you even put down the game tbh. I played trough the game 3 times already and even finished everything and never did i have any RNG issues.

The only RNG issue i had in this game was getting that damn Tanuki.

[Xedek]

Okay, updated experiences. (Wait, are you saying you had trouble finding a Tanuki? I encountered SO many of them, constantly. I kept getting annoyed that they were popping up all the time. It was one of my first monsters, right out of the gate.)

I decided to take a break from the Legendary Keepers and just go finish the base game since I was right there anyway. Headed further into Tower and ran right into Zosimos, who I hadn't fought yet. Despite having never lost a non-legendary Duel or Champion fight, he rolled me hard. I kept retrying for awhile, but it didn't feel like I was even getting close. Tired of struggling, I took a break from the game.

I came back the next day and tried a few more times. Same result. Changed the monster order, tried different tactics. Didn't feel even close. After a few attempts, stopped playing.

Came back a few days later just to try again. On the very first attempt, I absolutely crushed Zosimos. I only lost one monster the entire fight. It wasn't even close.

Okay, whatever, went on to the Chymes fight. Lost the first two tries, didn't want to repeat the Zosimos struggle, so took another break. Came back this morning, tried Chymes again, and completely obliterated him. Didn't lose a single monster.

Proceeded to roll laughably easily through Marduk and Mad Lord. Didn't lose a single monster on Marduk or even come close. Finished the Mad Lord fight at 100% healthy.

Now, obviously different team compositions are going to be good at different things. But. it just seems like the difficulty is..not "broken" necessarily. Just wonky, at the end. I just kept trying Zosimos until the dice came up in my favor. Then, after Zosimos, Marduk and Mad Lord were just completely trivial.

Just my observations, for what they are worth.

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by Xedek:

Okay, updated experiences. (Wait, are you saying you had trouble finding a Tanuki? I encountered SO many of them, constantly. I kept getting annoyed that they were popping up all the time.

The encounter is not the problem. its the Egg i wanted.

And i am not so sure about the "dice roll".
Finished the game 3 times and only had problems on my first playtrough. After that it was really easy getting trough the game two more times because well....i know whats coming.
Even the new DLC wasnt a challenge. It even further increased my power with the new Turtle who took the place of my caterpillar.

So all in all youre having the right experience when it is your first playtrough. I also believed the game is extremely hard but once i started my second run it was fairly easy. On my second run i only "lost" when i tried getting all Elites to 5 Star ratings because thats a little bit trial and error.