[Kodai]

Again, so we don't eat up the Suggestion Thread. o uo This will be where I post my ideas for Battle Traits you have suggested (or that I have come up with), and we can try to smooth them out before officially releasing them.

First up is a set of 'Elemental Spiked Body' Traits (original idea by Freezair). Here's what a full description would look like (Acid version for demonstration):

Toxic Barrier – Dependent//Acid
Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for this Trait.
Effect: When the opponent attacks and hits the user, the opponent takes Acid damage. This effect does not apply if the opponent uses an Elemental Attack or Elemental Area Attack, or if the user attacks itself due to confusion.
This effect does not stack with Spiked Body or other Elemental Body Traits. If the user has Spiked Body and Toxic Barrier, only Toxic Barrier's damage applies. If the user has Toxic Barrier and another Elemental Body Trait, the user must choose one to be active for the entire battle.
Damage Roll: There is no damage roll made for this Trait.
Attack As Well: This does not apply for this Trait.
Elemental Resistances: Elemental resistances (including resistances given by Traits) and weaknesses apply.
Lv. 1 - 9: 1 damage
Lv. 10 - 19: 1 damage
Lv. 20 - 29: 2 damage
Lv. 30 - 39: 2 damage
Lv. 40 - 49: 3 damage
Lv. 50 - 59: 3 damage
Lv. 60 - 69: 3 damage
Lv. 70 - 79: 4 damage
Lv. 80 - 89: 4 damage
Lv. 90 - 99: 4 damage
Lv. 100+: 5 damage

I'm wondering about a few things, which is where I want you to help me. Should it be Restricted? (Spiked Body isn't, but it does have a prerequisite.) Should it be an AP-based Trait? One-Use? Should the numbers differ from Spiked Body? Anything else you'd like to say?

[Thunder]

Should it be Restricted?
I don't think it should. A trait like this would do double damage only to the element it is strong against and would do less damage to the element it's weak against. It would do neutral damage to everything else, and you can avoid taking damage from it by using elemental attacks. So most of the time it would only have a mild effect.

How to Use
I think it should be either AP-based or automatic. One use seems too...well...useless xD

Should the Numbers Differ From Spiked Body?
I don't think so.

Anything else?
I can't think of anything at the moment. This is a cool idea though.

[Shieba]

I already told Kodai in a PM what I think about this, but I suppose I can c&p it so that everyone can see. xD

"I like the idea, but I find the Trait to be inferior to Sonic Waves and Horrific Moan. Sonic Waves always applies, no matter if Elemental Attack or not and Horrific Moan normally lasts longer. With the elemental spikes, you waste a turn setting them up and then have to hope for three turns that a) Your opponent doesn't use an elemental attack. Most pets have one of them. I think 80% do. b) Your opponent hits. Even with perfect precision, you have a 20% miss chance. Tournaments are often for lower levels.
So yeah, in the end, I think the idea is really good, but there are so many better Traits to pick and I can't spontaneously think of a pet ability/personality save of a ninja working with acid spikes that would really use them, I wonder if they would get picked a lot. Making one for every element seems a bit of too much of a hassle. But that's just me."

[Thunder]

The set-up problem can be eliminated if the traits are Automatic (which I'm personally leaning towards). Also, I don't really think you can compare these to Sonic Waves and Horrific Moan because they're for totally different purposes. These traits are for getting in extra damage, no matter how small, while Sonic Waves is for confusion and Horrific Moan reduces the opponent's hit rate. I can see why you'd prefer Sonic Waves and Horrific Moan, but I believe these Spiked Body-esque traits can be of surprising use.

[Kodai]

...I totally didn't forget that this existed, nope.

I think I like the idea of it being Automatic, too, but then I think we run into the problem of 'why would people still keep Spiked Body?' Granted, I don't think too many (if any) pets created in the future would get any of these as Racial Traits (compared to how often Spiked Body tends to get assigned)...
Also, if we do leave it unrestricted, should we figure out some sort of prerequisite to put on them? Or does Shieba's point of 'nearly everyone has at least one Elemental Attack anyway' sort of cancel out a need for some sort of restriction?

ON A DIFFERENT (but topic-relevant) NOTE:

I'm sure some of you wonder what the point is of having you guys list your Diets for tournaments and such when the only Diet that has an effect on battle is 'Carnivore'. Well! I'm trying to change that (and have already by adding 'Piscivore' to Bioaccumulation). The thing is, I'm not /entirely/ sure how, so I need your input. Right now, I have seven other Diets that could potentially have an effect on battle. Here's what I've thought up:

- Umbravore pet does more damage to Dark pet
- Silicivore pet does more damage to Earth/Metal pet
- Ninguivore pet does more damage to Ice pet
- Ignivore pet does more damage to Fire pet
- Electrivore pet does more damage to Electricity pet
- Sonusphagous pet does more damage to Energy pet

You see how I have the vague 'does more damage to' part up there? That's what I want your help with. Just /how/ do these pets do more damage? Should it be an automatic thing (if your pet has x Diet, it automatically does +y more damage to z-Element pets)? Or should there be new Traits (there would be the prerequisite of having x Diet, and then your pet would do +y more damage to z-Element pet)? If you have any other ideas (either for how to implement this or for other ways that Diet can affect battle), please tell me~

[Shieba]

I love the idea of Diets affecting battles more, but I'm against making it automatic for two reasons:
1) Diets are not elements. Elements have drawbacks - your pet is weak to something because of it - so picking two doesn't grant you much advantage over picking none because it evens out. Now diets have no drawbacks in the way you have planned them, so there's no reason to NOT pick two, which goes against the idea of traits getting picked for personality, not for battles.
2) While you have quite a few ideas collected there, there's not one for every diet, making some pets gain a disadvantage. And I think we already have enough imbalance thanks to Racial Traits.

So I vote for making Traits that need to be picked as a part of the six-battle-traits-set.

[Thunder]

Well the way I saw it was that Spiked Body would do the same amount of damage to all elements, while an elemental Spiked Body would do more damage to what it's strong against (ex. Fire Spiked Body damages Ice pet more) while it would do less damage to what it's weak against (ex. Fire Spiked body damages Water pet less). And it would do neutral damage to every other element. Think about the difference between Spikes and Stealth Rock in Pokemon.

Aaand I don't really know how to feel about the Diets thing.

Also not on-topic but how many battle traits can we assign a pet again? Wasn't it 4 and then possibly one extra for a custom pet?

[Shieba]

Thunder, it's six for a normal pet and seven for a custom pet (since there is no number restriction for passive traits anymore, the battle traits are the only place now to use the extra trait on; there's no reason to not to anymore).

[Azura Rayume]

Well the way I saw it was that Spiked Body would do the same amount of damage to all elements, while an elemental Spiked Body would do more damage to what it's strong against (ex. Fire Spiked Body damages Ice pet more) while it would do less damage to what it's weak against (ex. Fire Spiked body damages Water pet less). And it would do neutral damage to every other element. Think about the difference between Spikes and Stealth Rock in Pokemon.

This is what I wanted to say, but failed at wording it. :| Also, the "does not apply if the opponent uses an Elemental Attack or Elemental Area Attack" could be canceled by the elements as well. And I keep viewing this as Pokemon as well, so... x3

Pet one (ice type) uses a physical Ice Element move on Pet two (fire type).
Pet two has Fire Spiked Body.
On contact with Pet two, Pet one takes damage due to Pet two's Fire Spiked Body and its own ice typing.
If Pet one had been a type that was not weak against Fire, the damage from Fire Spiked Body would not have applied due to the attack being an Elemental Ability.

I hope it makes sense. :| Unless I'm reading it wrong, of course. Because you can totally ignore me if I am.

[Thunder]

Pet one (ice type) uses a physical Ice Element move on Pet two (fire type).
Pet two has Fire Spiked Body.
On contact with Pet two, Pet one takes damage due to Pet two's Fire Spiked Body and its own ice typing.
If Pet one had been a type that was not weak against Fire, the damage from Fire Spiked Body would not have applied due to the attack being an Elemental Ability.

I think that last statements would be clearer worded like this:
"On contact with pet two, pet one takes extra damage from Fire Spiked Body due to its own ice typing."
"If pet one has a type that is not weak against Fire, the damage from Fire Spiked Body will be neutral."

Neutral as in it still takes damage but not extra damage. And if it was strong against Fire, it would take reduced damage. Yah.

[Kodai]

"Elemental resistances (including resistances given by Traits) and weaknesses apply."
The idea of having it do more or less damage depending on the Elements of the attacker and defender were already a part of the Trait. XD~ But I guess the main thing I was thinking was that Spiked Body and an Energy Elemental Body (that's what I'm calling them now) would be the exact same thing, since Energy doesn't have any strengths or weaknesses. I guess I'll just not make an Energy one. P=

And Thunder's right in clearing up your last statement, Azura. XD; Spiked Body isn't set off by the Elemental Attacks, so if the attacking Ice-Element pet used Frost, it still wouldn't take any damage. If it was a non-Elemental pet using Freezing Touch (an Ice Trait), it would take damage, but only the 'neutral' amount.

Anyways, I edited the description, so see what you think. o uo

[Shieba]

Okay, Kodai asked me to actually suggest this here since it was only mentioned in the IRC between us.

For the Elemental Barrier Traits, Kodai described them as something for "elemental pets that can coat themselves in damaging elemental energies". So the question has popped up how to restrict these Traits. Obviously, they work very much like Spiked Body, only that Spiked Body has a prerequisite that keeps it from being spammed by everyone and their mom. To avoid people abusing these Traits ("Hey, look, my Rattegan/Fellox/Matches/almost every other pet there is has flames/lives in water/blah, so giving it this Trait even without it being an elemental mage or actually being of that element is totally cool"), two options have been kinda considered

a) Making them normally restricted. This is easily done, but kinda doubles the restricted Traits list because of all the elements
b) Making the Traits have a low AP cost that triggers if the Trait applies (aka when the opponent hits physically). When AP reach 0, the Trait gets switched off. The idea was based on the fact that even fully elemental pets like a Pot o'Ember live normally in Evelon without setting things on fire all the time, meaning that even they can control their elemental energy output and that this should require quite some energy.

[Kyrit]

b) Making the Traits have a low AP cost that triggers if the Trait applies (aka when the opponent hits physically). When AP reach 0, the Trait gets switched off. The idea was based on the fact that even fully elemental pets like a Pot o'Ember live normally in Evelon without setting things on fire all the time, meaning that even they can control their elemental energy output and that this should require quite some energy.

I could actually see this as like, consuming AP over time easily. Low cost and consumes over time. That'd be another reason people wouldn't spam it since it'll go off once they run out of AP and it constantly consumes AP. They'd also be able to turn it off at any time. Maybe like, 1 AP per turn (or two turns. Just something of the sort basically) and if you're feeling hurt for AP you can just shut it off.

[Shieba]

I was told by Kodai to post this somewhere, but since this is not about new Traits, I figured it goes here? I'm not sure. If this is only for things suggested by Kodai, feel free to move this to where it is appropriate.

1) Horrific Wail/Moan: Right now, it's a one-target trait. However, given that it's a sound-based thing and you rarely have an opponent standing still enough that you can scream directly into their ear, it should maybe work like an area attack in 2vs2 fights, as in, it affects both opponents and your ally if it hits each of them. This is more like a logic issue than a Trait needing to be fixed. We...never really had 2vs2 battles, but who knows. So yay/nay?

2) Healing Traits/Bonus damage. It's a sad matter of fact that no one uses them. And why should they? Let's have a look at a pet level 21. In a battle with an equally leveled pet, it would heal with Healing Touch - which is stronger than Healer's Chant - 5 Endurance and forsake a chance to attack for it. In the same turn, it might get hit by its opponent (likely, since no one ever uses healing moves). Upon a hit, the opponent gets a bonus damage roll of 1-7, which, even if the healing pet has greater defense than the opponent's offense, means that there is a damage of 8 (1+7) possible, which is almost twice as much as the healing ability did. At any rate, even a bonus damage of 4 means that the healing had no effect at all and 7AP are wasted. A pet at level 21 has 30 AP. If the opponent hits with an elemental attack at this level and has the element of its attack (which is likely), the damage will be 9, which is even higher.

Now there are "upgraded" versions of the healing skills. They heal, hold your breath, a single Endurance more at that level and require you to have the original version in addition to the upgraded one, meaning you waste one valuable battle slot that you could just fill with an Endurance increasing trait for a measly one Endurance. I think there is no doubt that this is completely and utterly useless.

Also, yes, the difference of one Endurance remains until the stat cap. And in comparision between all healing traits, it remains just as funny.
At level 100:
Greater Healing Touch (restricted) heals 14 Endurance for 16 AP
Healing Touch heals 13 Endurance for 15 AP.
Healer's Prayer (restricted) heals 15 Endurance for 17 AP.
Healer's Chant heals 12 Endurance for 14 AP.
Obviously, Healer's Chant and its upgrade, Healer's Prayer, have a bigger margin, but it still remains that for two endurance difference, everyone would rather pick up only Healing Touch and not waste another slot on the upgrade.

But. Know the biggest fun here? The bonus damage for a pet at level 30 (not 100!) goes up to 14! Why is this? It jumps from 9 to 14, that's insane since no one gains suddenly a load of more Endurance (have fun slaughtering level 29 pets, you of level 30! 8D) That is as much as even Greater Healing touch can only heal at level 100! The most powerful healing, Healer's prayer, heals 8 Endurance at level 30, making this finally a complete waste.

Now there is another restricted Trait, Augment Healing. At level 20, it adds +4 Endurance, at level 30 +5 and at level 100 +12 to every healing Trait used. Since I doubt anyone would ever waste half their slots on healing Traits, picking a non-restricted, basic healing Trait and Augment Healing will effectively double your healing power at the expense of NO ADDITIONAL AP. This means that you can outheal any bonus damage with it even at level 30 with that combination. (If your Defense is lower than your opponent's Offense, though, you're most likely still losing Endurance.)

Then again, I doubt that anyone would just want to outheal the next strike, since that gets you nowhere in a fight. Someone would want to actually last longer in battle. Oh, about having one healing pet and one fighter in a 2vs2 battle? Nope. Augment Healing doesn't work on allies. And with two opponents beating you up, it wouldn't save you even if it would. Double damage and all that.

So, in the end, I propose four changes to Healing stuff and bonus damages:
a) Make it that you can use healing together with an attack. Using them this way means that you gain at least an additional attack by outhealing the next strike for sure if you have a healing Trait + Augment Healing and your Defense isn't a pile of dung. The high AP cost is enough of a downside already.
b) Erase the two restricted healing Traits - they're useless and just waste a slot since you need the prerequisite. If anything, I think we need only one healing Trait at all (Healer's Touch seems like the best choice to keep). Without Augment Healing, they are all pretty useless, though, so yeah. Maybe Augment's Healing's value and the healing Trait's one together should be the new base value for the healing Trait to give it some meaning without Augment Healing?
c) Make bonus damage rise normally, not jumping from 7 to 9 to 14. There is no...logic in that. Everything else scales normally up to the highest level, why not bonus damage?
d) Make Augment Healing work on allies...not that it saves you when recieving double damage, but still.

3) Precision stuff: Since I'm helping with the new Precision system, I know there might be a change soon and Dai already knows about this, but just so that it is complete: In the current tournament, Sharp Vision actually added 10% of 100 (max hit percentage) to the fight, making the pet using it able to hit on a 1-9 roll instead of the usual 1-8 one. While nice, we have a Trait - Deadly Precision - that adds 50% to the hit rate. Since all pets, even with Precision 1, have a chance to hit with 50% (1-5 roll), adding 50% of 100 there would end with a pet never missing even with no Precision whatsoever. There is a mistake there.

In an earlier tournament, there was a pet using Elusive Foe and the 75% miss rate weren't substracted from 100 (which would be bad, that would be an eternal Horrific Wail at max level and everyone can read in the Horrific Wail test battle how much that had failed), but from the actual Precision the pet had - I think it had 29 and was then left with 7, which still gave it a 50% hit chance, which is okay and how it should be. So yes. This doesn't need a Trait fix, but a fix back to the old calculation system. Since the new Precision system that is in the test might cap at 50 and work pretty much the same way as the current one, just with Speed influencing it, this would still apply there as well. o3o So yes, current tournament calculation = bad.

And now I'm done. Anyone having any comments? Please? (We need more people working on the battle system! D8;;;)

[MillietheWarrior]

Millie has no idea about most battling things. XD

However, I do agree with the horrific moan/wail idea. In general, if someone screams, one person isn’t going to hear it and the person beside them is like ‘Dum-dee-dum, ignoring~’ So it makes sense if it was an area attack where 2 on 2 battling is concerned.

So yay. ^^

I really wish I could comment on the other stuff but yeah...Way over my head. x3