[Meta Thread] Pokerole Mystery Dungeon: Primal Shadows

[Lord Windos]

Hehehe....everything has come full circle between us now, Dragonstrike. I even got the half-way prediction right about Platina getting Shadowed/Primaled for her troubled, though not exactly how so. Tricky tricky, you are. Now to get to reacting to this....tomorrow, 'cause it's late and I need to rest for classes!

Speaking honestly, I absolutely abhor the gimmick/mechanic you've just introduced with The Big Snek. I also think giving Platina a Point in Primal for this is quite disproportionate in terms of 'cost' , but then again I don't particularly care she gains Primal for reasons. Taking away a cornerstone feature of the very Game, Item Use, sporadically and comboing it with the high possibility of characters getting Primaled and one step closer of losing their PCs is.....very contentious. There is a thing as being too creative with challenges sometimes, mate. Embargo can at least be planned around by looking up Learnsets of Mons and it being so rare to Encounter as to be a non-factor outside of some very savvy and pragmatic Pokemon Bosses, and that doesn't have the chance of getting Primal for your troubles.

However, even in light of this fact, I say the group should still stay the course and fight Big Snek with Team Raiders. The risk of Primal 'cause we can't use our Revive Items is patent bullshit to have hanging over our heads, but the fact of the matter is that we all were going to try and minimize using Items anyway against this Boss - all its mechanic does is enforce that and having to be clever about finding gaps to use Items. Oh how I wish one of the group knew Taunt right about now, though that is by no means a guarantee it work on whatever is causing Item Lock on Big Snek's end. That, and it's as Team Raiders says - theirs no telling if Lando can't do the same as Big Snek or worse with its gimmicks, and I much rather have them by our side fighting that brute than having our groups deal with it all by our lonesomes. Plus, more XP is more XP, in the end.

[Dragonstrike]

I did say this encounter was going to be hard if optionally taken.  And I do like my gimmicky custom Shadow moves to try and keep you on your toes. You just so happened to give me an opportunity to reveal information before the fight instead of during.

[Lord Windos]

I did say this encounter was going to be hard if optionally taken.  And I do like my gimmicky custom Shadow moves to try and keep you on your toes.  You just so happened to give me an opportunity to reveal information before the fight instead of during.

*Shrugs* Fair enough. It's part of the reason why I'm not as upset as I am about this 'Gotcha!' - at the very least it gives the Group more Info about what exactly they're dealing with here (as well as the fact you're likely to continue making bold PD mechanics). I suppose I'm just irritated that I got Platina her first Primal Point in a manner I don't find particularly 'fitting' for what she gained in exchange, but as it's not totally intolerable I'll live and let live. If nothing else I can save up 50 more XP to clear away the Primal, if I feel like gimping my Stats or forsake getting Max Instinct to be a fair trade in that case.

[Spiritmon]

You know, a little headsup next time would be very much appreciated @Dragonstrike. Like "Spiritmon. Windos. Are you sure you want to along with this? Really sure?" Or maybe just ask us a roll to notice something that could not be good or could give us a Point in Primal. Since with the danger in loose our characters to become Primal against a Pokemon who stop us in use healing items (which, sorry to say this, I feel it is unfair. Its a Gigantamax Pokemon with tons of HP, buffed stats, all attacks is AoE, and one of the things who could give us a extra survivevality against such powerfull pokemon is shutdown. Not cool man. Not cool.)

*Sigh* At least we now aware of this information before engage on a battle against Sandaconda. Its better know now than later in the middle of the fight when we could loose a precious action only to try to heal, so thats a positive thing. This change my idea of pun.

In terms of survival, we can only rely Karen Heal Pulse, Life Dew, and other healing moves. Speaking of healing I think Karen could give a bit of healing to Platina before we go to our death battle.

[Dragonstrike]

Again, I did say this was going to be a hard, very much optional encounter.  You have 9 NPCs with you that are generally stronger than your party on average, especially Team Raiders.  You do not have to fight this thing if you think it is too risky.

[Mikaruge108]

In terms of survival, we can only rely Karen Heal Pulse, Life Dew, and other healing moves. Speaking of healing I think Karen could give a bit of healing to Platina before we go to our death battle.

Karen only knows Life Dew at the moment, and doesn't have enough exp to learn Heal Pulse right now.

[Lord Windos]

You know, a little headsup next time would be very much appreciated @Dragonstrike. Like "Spiritmon. Windos. Are you sure you want to along with this? Really sure?" Or maybe just ask us a roll to notice something that could not be good or could give us a Point in Primal. Since with the danger in loose our characters to become Primal against a Pokemon who stop us in use healing items (which, sorry to say this, I feel it is unfair. Its a Gigantamax Pokemon with tons of HP, buffed stats, all attacks is AoE, and one of the things who could give us a extra survivevality against such powerfull pokemon is shutdown. Not cool man. Not cool.)

*Sigh* At least we now aware of this information before engage on a battle against Sandaconda. Its better know now than later in the middle of the fight when we could loose a precious action only to try to heal, so thats a positive thing. This change my idea of pun.

In terms of survival, we can only rely Karen Heal Pulse, Life Dew, and other healing moves. Speaking of healing I think Karen could give a bit of healing to Platina before we go to our death battle.

It's not great, but Dragonstrike ultimately decided to make G-Max Sandaconda more of a lesson for me and the rest of the group than I truly expected. The fact the Big Snek is optional and that I don't really care about the Primal point gain outside of how inappropriate it feels to get it like I did are what is keeping me from being anything more than mildly irritated. Also, he did give me something akin to a warning in some PMs he sent, just not (to me) clear ones, to clarify to everyone.

Yeah, it's a pretty raw deal to have Item Usage, a core mechanic of Pokerole and Pokemon Games in general, be turned into a liability if it decides to spam that Shadow Embargo on us every chance we get, but to their credit Dragonstrike has at least used my own Actions to give us this info ahead of time, rather than springing it on us mid-fight. That, and the Big Snek Fight is an Optional Super Boss by their explicit admission - high risk, high reward (in this case, XP + Potential Loot + Having Raiders with us throughout the MD) is what it's all about. We can skip them if we simply want to, as a group, say 'no' to said PD bullshit, even if that thought upsets me on what we're missing out on due to said BS.

It reminds me of the time Iron sprang the horde of Mushroom Mons down in Mt Sentry on us, and used that to justify nerfing Sleep - it exploited a mechanic that is plain awful to deal with in the enemy hands to force a more perilous Encounter and/or us to find ways to circumvent it. While avoiding a unfavorable fight is a legit and often times smart choice in TTRPGs and the like - you don't fight the BBEG while your party is still Lv 1, for instance - the opportunity cost of doing so and the whys of it make just Torchic-ening out leave such a bitter taste in my mouth. We can just do like we did with the Mushrooms and avoid it altogether, and that would honestly be more of a good idea for the group as a whole than to more likely than not SUFFER, but that (to me, at least) feels like such a massive letdown and like I'm being cheated out of a what SHOULD be a epic fight because of such a serious 'Gotcha!' looming over our PCs heads like a sword of Damocles. 

Heck, I'll go out on a limb here and say that I'd probably not irritated at all about the Item Block if it didn't get paired with the abysmal Primal Mechanics and getting the Party Shadowed if they push their luck too much. It's not too dissimilar to Lethal Damage in concept, but in execution Primal Mechanics are worse - the PC is stuck with a eventually Game Ending demerit that can actually permanently delete Stat points (Logic) and is extremely costly to remove if one doesn't want to rely on GM fiat to get it cleared. Having such a dire consequence baked into the game itself can make for some compelling RP and challenges as well as a nice way of enforcing some discipline in players, I will admit, but PC Permadeath - like mechanics rarely feel good or 'fair' , especially when used to gatekeep content.

To clarify to @Dragonstrike , I'm not trying to be mean about my criticism or your decisions regarding the Big Snek. I'm just offering it as a point of discussion for everyone and to explain my own feelings on the matter. While skipping out on a good fight or having to relieve the 'good old days' of PD + Consequence shenanigans is a bit of a Morton's Fork of a choice, it is still just as you said - a choice. One you've done a good job elaborating as much as you can about without totally giving away what the super boss can do and spoil that fight entirely/completely railroad the players away from it. If nothing else I can respect and like that sort of thoughtful game design and the freedom you're giving us - I'm just being irritable about how severe you're making it out to be and out of my own distaste for PD anything not in the players hands. You're doing a good job, mate, so keep it up.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

...Huh. No item usage means no auto-revival from the Reviver Seeds Kee has stocked up upon and no turning the fight in our favour, which makes me even LESS eager to fight BigSnek. Which means that I would still much rather avoid the battle and move onwards to Landorus - yes the fight against the gigantamax'd Sandi would be extremely high rewarding (if we win, that is), but it soulds like too much of a challenge. It's meant to be challenging, that's true, but I still

1. do no feel that we all, even with various strong NPC-help, are strong or experienced enough yet to face it with a managable risk

2. kinda have the feeling that there is a good reason for splitting up here, and that reason being story-related. Something along the lines of 'GM has something planned ahead that will only work if the partly splits here', and it's being told indirectly via this optimal hard encounter of BigSnek. Or I could be reading too much into things.

3. frankly I do not wish to needing to save up 50 or more XP to remove Primal Points from Kee, and much less do I wish to risk loosing him as a player chara due to him going fully Pokemon. Granted, Kee in-chara would not mind as being a full-blown Pokemon means that he's being freed from the trauma memories of his human mind and his extreme seperation anxiety and can start anew completely, but THAT would also mean that the memory of the Quest given by Arceus is, uh, completely forgotten about. Which may or may not mean the Pokemon World is doomed.

4. I'dkinda like to progress the story and move onwards than taking optimal encounters. Because I'd guess rolling out+typing out the battle will take Dragonstrike quite a while (not meant ill-natured, but you have a job and other hobbies+responsibilities too after all), possibly even more than I'd guess Landorus' battle will take

Feel free to try convince me if you wish /genuine, and I'll try to have Kee go by that - like, if you all are still up to fight BigSnek, he'll join. If not, he'll be fine with that too - because becoming a great Adventurer of the Guild does also mean backing off when you're not ready for the challenge, something along that lines.

[Lord Windos]

Alright, to avoid a deadlock and prevent a potentially looooong wait for No One to get online and throw their two cents in, I'm changing my vote to not fighting G-Max Sandaconda. Phantom makes good points I already was thinking myself and somewhat already expressed, and I rather not try to force a long-ass debate to convince anyone else to go against logic and risk assessment just to have a good fight, get some potential loot, and have the added safety net of having Team Raiders on our side. Honestly if it were an option I'd just want the group to wait for Team Raiders to take on and defeat G-Max Sandaconda before moving on with them, but I have a feeling that things will not allow such a craven, time intensive 'solution' .

With me, Phantom, and Mika, that's a 3 way majority to skip the fight, so unless anyone else has anything to add to the following scene we can Move On to the next part of the MD. And if you do please make it quick - not to be rude, but I'm itching to get back to progressing the story and trying out Platina's newly expanded Moveset, and I rather not wait another week to do so.

My final thoughts on this topic (for now): I was looking forward to fighting the G-Max Snek, but the mechanical reveal effectively killed it before it could begin is very frustrating to have to dealt with. Say what you will about it being an optional challenge that was made to be harder than usual to account for our expanded roaster, but the challenge and all its potential for fun/benefits/cost assessment thereof is rendered mute if you don't design it right, as well as all the effort Dragonstrike put into designing it. Or, in other words, a good fight for us all was ruined by a (in my opinion) particular bad combo of a nasty custom mechanic and Primal Panic and screwed me over more than I think was necessary in the process.

It's probably for the best the Group avoid fighting Giga Snek, and it was nice to get a warning at all about how nasty the Snek really was (even if my PC is getting screwed over now because of it), but I wish that our decision to avoid fighting it did not hinge on such a polarizing gimmick. I do hope you take note of this Dragonstrike when designing future Boss Encounters, Optional Challenges, and the like, 'cause a lot of effort to make memorable and fun fights are going to be completely spoiled if you start leaning more heavily on Player Restrictive mechanics (Especially if it has any chance to dovetail into Primal Panic). The prominent use of such BS PDs more or less leaves no choice but to play it safe whenever possible, which frankly sucks for one (me!) that likes to be challenged but not in a way that feels 'cheap' or forces us into OOC debates over what should be done or risked. That, or the Team has to be sufficiently OP and prepared for anything for us to even consider taking such risk or handle BS without it feeling 'unfair', which would be mentally exhausting and boring to do on a constant basis.

I having a tough time trying to put everything into words about how I feel about the merethought of future Encounters having nasty mechanics like Item Lock, Super Plot Armor, more ways to force Primal Points onto us, etc. that would ruin fights, prevent Encounters (wasting them), and be unpleasant rather than interesting to deal with on the whole. To try and sum up my feelings anyway, however......well, their mere existence is already casting a shadow over the campaign and making us Players go against our preferences or take chances for 'the greater good' . That ain't necessarily a bad thing if you can refine your approaches to make harsh restrictions/challenges fun or worthwhile because (or in spite) of said harshness, and it's valuable to not fight some fights, but it's not a good thing either. The last thing I want is Encounters to turn into hassles or be effectively gated off by sheer dint of more players erring on the side of caution and me having to go along with them not to hold up the campaign if I don't want to resort to Solo Strats (which suck in PMD) or trying to make (most likely futile, prohibitive, or simply time intensive) OOC Deals to get what I want.

[Dragonstrike]

The end goal isn't to try and beat you guys of course, and it never will be unless I'm roleplaying the villain(s) of the story (and even then, probably only closer to the ends of their respective arc(s)). The GM playing to win at all times does not make for a fun time for anybody.