@Lonewolf685 You don't get points for kills outside of the altars. The optimal strategy would be to kill the enemy strongest outside the altars, force their weakest in, and then throw your strongest at them. Which would require aggressive team coordination and overwhelming victories to enforce. At which point you kinda deserve the win.
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@TheWindel Well, here's a simple concept for "Objective + Fighting".
Battlefield covered with magic altars. Once you step in one, you're locked in, and cannot be damaged by anyone not in the altar, nor damage anyone not in the altar. Once two people are in, no more may enter. When one dies, that victorious team gets a point, the winner personally gets a temporary boon for the rest of the battle, and the winner is free to move again. The winning team at the end when all the altars are used up gets yada yada magic boon. Blood for the blood god.
This means you're incentivized not to turtle and avoid fights so that you can en mass gang up on the last survivors of everyone else fighting, which is a problem with last man standing style fights. No one enjoys a top tier strategy of Battle Royale being "hide in a bush". This means there are lots of fights, with a clear purpose beyond "last man standing gets this blasted heap of worthless land". There's strategy of picking your fights, but the strategic level doesn't overshadow the personal fights, merely grant an advantage. It also gives tons of ground for unusual mix ups to prevent everything from being deterministic. This is the "anti-gravity altar", this is the "no magic altar", so on.
Another important feature is that you can fight without figuring out the strategy, and still be somewhat meaningful. In the current battle, if you don't figure out the secret behind the monster, you can do literally nothing to hurt it. Your options are "be a weapon in the monster's arsenal, do nothing, or figure it out". If you're not smart enough to figure it out, your remaining options aren't that enticing. In a battle like I proposed above, even if you don't figure out the optimal strategy, you can still fight your hardest and try to help your team. Even if you get a disadvantageous matchup because your lack of strategy, you still get to try and win that matchup.
If my options are "figure it out or be completely worthless" or "figure it out or be at a disadvantage", given my track record with figuring things out, I'd much prefer the later. This whole battle has felt like "You're an idiot for not figuring it out, so you're less than worthless, actually just another weapon in the monster's arsenal". Well, sorry. But I didn't. My bad. I was actually really looking forward to Cydone, Anteaus, and Unit-T maybe, vs giant monster. But none of us passed the Int check, so, it doesn't get to happen.
Battlefield covered with magic altars. Once you step in one, you're locked in, and cannot be damaged by anyone not in the altar, nor damage anyone not in the altar. Once two people are in, no more may enter. When one dies, that victorious team gets a point, the winner personally gets a temporary boon for the rest of the battle, and the winner is free to move again. The winning team at the end when all the altars are used up gets yada yada magic boon. Blood for the blood god.
This means you're incentivized not to turtle and avoid fights so that you can en mass gang up on the last survivors of everyone else fighting, which is a problem with last man standing style fights. No one enjoys a top tier strategy of Battle Royale being "hide in a bush". This means there are lots of fights, with a clear purpose beyond "last man standing gets this blasted heap of worthless land". There's strategy of picking your fights, but the strategic level doesn't overshadow the personal fights, merely grant an advantage. It also gives tons of ground for unusual mix ups to prevent everything from being deterministic. This is the "anti-gravity altar", this is the "no magic altar", so on.
Another important feature is that you can fight without figuring out the strategy, and still be somewhat meaningful. In the current battle, if you don't figure out the secret behind the monster, you can do literally nothing to hurt it. Your options are "be a weapon in the monster's arsenal, do nothing, or figure it out". If you're not smart enough to figure it out, your remaining options aren't that enticing. In a battle like I proposed above, even if you don't figure out the optimal strategy, you can still fight your hardest and try to help your team. Even if you get a disadvantageous matchup because your lack of strategy, you still get to try and win that matchup.
If my options are "figure it out or be completely worthless" or "figure it out or be at a disadvantage", given my track record with figuring things out, I'd much prefer the later. This whole battle has felt like "You're an idiot for not figuring it out, so you're less than worthless, actually just another weapon in the monster's arsenal". Well, sorry. But I didn't. My bad. I was actually really looking forward to Cydone, Anteaus, and Unit-T maybe, vs giant monster. But none of us passed the Int check, so, it doesn't get to happen.
While I appreciate your efforts, I don't think your efforts will solve any of the problems I have with combat in general.
I actually have to repeat your complaint of "it's always one of two options you never think of compromise between the two" to you. When we ask for an objective battle, we get an objective that disincentives fighting of any sort. When we ask for fighting to be meaningful, we get a battle where literally the only objective is fighting.
As someone who doesn't seem to be good enough at this sort of this thing to figure out the puzzles in appreciable time, I'm not good at the objective battles. As someone who is willing (perhaps too willing after I've gotten sick of arguing) to have my characters die, I usually don't participate in the fighty battles for very long either.
I also feel like the Triangle, now that it's being enforced more stringently, is encouraging people to avoid fighting each other. Any matchup is always a severe disadvantage for at least one person, meaning at least one person wants to avoid the fight. A person who didn't realize how strong the Triangle was the one of two people to actually start a fight this battle (Wizard). The other person was using Utada who Flood is trying to kill of harder than I try to kill off Miyu.
As interesting as the Triangle may be from a meta perspective, from an in the moment perspective, most people don't like seeing their characters try their best and just get mercilessly crushed anyway because they're at a type disadvantage. Watching the last battle's demon vs angel ambush was painful for pretty much everybody. And, given how large swaths of a team can disappear whether from player attrition or just getting separated on the battlefield (Like Cass and Jubilee did by pursuing a reasonable guess for the objective, albeit, they got it wrong), you can end up with situations where one group of players is doomed, not because of their own fault at the out of combat picking characters strategy, but because the team that counters the team they're weak to just up and disappeared.
But ultimately, I have to ask myself "What fights developed characters for me?" And I can answer: Miyu vs Henry. Ira vs Alexi. Miyu vs Henry 2, electric boogaloo. That's significantly less fights than there have been battles, and each battle is a multi-month investment. Getting one decent scene every 4-8 months on average is just not a great use of time.
I'm going to keep to my stance on dropping combat unless I really see a ton of change in action, not just words.
I actually have to repeat your complaint of "it's always one of two options you never think of compromise between the two" to you. When we ask for an objective battle, we get an objective that disincentives fighting of any sort. When we ask for fighting to be meaningful, we get a battle where literally the only objective is fighting.
As someone who doesn't seem to be good enough at this sort of this thing to figure out the puzzles in appreciable time, I'm not good at the objective battles. As someone who is willing (perhaps too willing after I've gotten sick of arguing) to have my characters die, I usually don't participate in the fighty battles for very long either.
I also feel like the Triangle, now that it's being enforced more stringently, is encouraging people to avoid fighting each other. Any matchup is always a severe disadvantage for at least one person, meaning at least one person wants to avoid the fight. A person who didn't realize how strong the Triangle was the one of two people to actually start a fight this battle (Wizard). The other person was using Utada who Flood is trying to kill of harder than I try to kill off Miyu.
As interesting as the Triangle may be from a meta perspective, from an in the moment perspective, most people don't like seeing their characters try their best and just get mercilessly crushed anyway because they're at a type disadvantage. Watching the last battle's demon vs angel ambush was painful for pretty much everybody. And, given how large swaths of a team can disappear whether from player attrition or just getting separated on the battlefield (Like Cass and Jubilee did by pursuing a reasonable guess for the objective, albeit, they got it wrong), you can end up with situations where one group of players is doomed, not because of their own fault at the out of combat picking characters strategy, but because the team that counters the team they're weak to just up and disappeared.
But ultimately, I have to ask myself "What fights developed characters for me?" And I can answer: Miyu vs Henry. Ira vs Alexi. Miyu vs Henry 2, electric boogaloo. That's significantly less fights than there have been battles, and each battle is a multi-month investment. Getting one decent scene every 4-8 months on average is just not a great use of time.
I'm going to keep to my stance on dropping combat unless I really see a ton of change in action, not just words.
For anyone who happens to be waiting on everyone to post before continuing, no need to wait for me. Ninja Janitor doesn't need limelight.
Cydone
When Cydone sensed reality warping behind him, specifically Antaeus', and looked to see another monster, he figured something was up. This oily fog must not really be an oily fog. He was probably aiming at another ally then. Switching up his inertia again, Cydone decided to just send the tower towards the portal back to Angel controlled territory (sensing it's direction through his Reality Check), riding it back. If the goal was control of this city, well, Cydone would just take at least this piece of it. That would at least be one probably worthless hunk of rock more than nothing.
@thewizardguy@Lmpkio@KoL
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Cassiopia
Cass figured she wasn't quite good enough at figuring to figure out the puzzle here, so she decided to try resurrecting one of the dead guards (And only one in case it turned violent. Never raise more demons/undead than you can put down and all. Summoning/Necromancy 101.) and asking them some things. Of course, if the spirit and memory was too far gone, it'd just be a minion that couldn't tell her anything, but well, minions were good too.
@KoL@floodtalon
@Silver Carrot That is an adorable picture. :3
@TheWindel She's extremely skilled, but has no explicitly supernatural powers.
@floodtalon
I mean, now that I took the time to think about it again, a Viking Ninja isn't exactly the most pleasant idea to imagine. It feels eh... dissonant for no good reason, I guess?
I was once min-maxing in a pen and paper RPG and realized at the end I had made a Japanese Aztec Pirate Detective.
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