[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Spiritmon]

Let's hope for that. If not...well, it was a honor and a pleasure to Role-playing with you people.

[Iron]

It'd be kinda fun to do a post-apocalyptic roleplay, I suppose. but it's been done already

I think I'll have time to get to this tomorrow morning. If not, Sunday night.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

That was a truely epic battle, I enjoyed it a lot! ( ÒωÓ)و☆ Now, Iron, once you've got the time, do tell what the XP + ? reward of it is, because I'm pretty curious about that. ^0^

[Lord Windos]

Ditto to that sentiment, dear! An Fan-TASTIC, epic clash of titanic wills, I've had my share of highs and lows from this, but I have to saw it was a grossly net positive experience! To put it bluntly, NICE JOB IRON!

Now, to quickly type up a reaction, as the event of the final round and thereafter sorta deserve my attention.!

[Dragonstrike]

While it was epic by definition and I did enjoy it to some degree, I do have a few criticisms.

a) The Artifacts only affecting one pokemon at a time (with the exception of the helm) made it feel like they were optimized for a single character to wield them all, using one pokemon at a time.  That could be good or bad, but I think we can all agree that...

b) Not having enough Artifacts for all the players wasn't a good thing overall (at least imo).  People felt left out (even moreso thanks to the Scims), and while that's (mostly) been adressed (OOC) already, it also left us with moments where not everyone could contribute to the final battle in a meaningful way aside from one or two small things.

c) The Artifacts being less effective than expected in the Clone battle seemed a bit...arbitrary.  While I kinda get what Iron was going for with the power levels apparently affecting how potent ghe Artifacts are (at least, I think that's the key difference Iron was referring to between the Clones and the Prime), it was a rather nasty surprise to find out that it would take more blows than expected to fell something that wasn't even fully PDed, particularly since there was almost no prior indication that would be the case.

d) I feel like the Helm being given to Spira last minute hurt its performance overall.  Its full range of effects weren't as well explained as the simpler Sword and Shield, and Spira's team wasn't exactly very well optimized for it on top of not really having any time to play around with the effects himself before the big battle.  (Loved Kelda's turnaround reaction, though).

e) The retrieval of 3 of the Artifacts definitely felt...lackluster.  Mostly because the Scims just automatically pulled 'em out of their hiding places, giving us very littke chance to puzzle it out for ourselves or make our own attempt.  (Granted, that didn't quite happen with the Hauberk, but it boiled down to relying on them for it anyways)

f) Aside from the start of the SR and retrieving the Artifacts, plus the few times they drew some enemies from a large horde away...it didn't really feel like the Scims did much.  I was under the impression they'd be present and assisting in almost every encounter due to the nature of the 'agreement', but it ended up feeling like they weren't there at all in most of the encounters we dealt with.

I liked the settings and cinematics a lot, but...it felt wanting mechanically to me.  There were still moments I enjoyed, but...I'm finding myself more relieved that it's FINALLY over than celebratory.

I really hope that the next PD encounter we have is going to be a fairer challenge mechanically for everyone involved, not just those with the few key items that are the only things that can make a significant difference at all.

...of course, it's not truly over until Cosh either gets away or is arrested, and I find myself dreading this immediate stretch's roleplaying again.  Honestly, I've not been having as much fun as I'd have liked during this entire stretch with the Artifacts, knowing that these issues were likely going to crop up after Deoxys.

It would be oh so cathartic to finally see Cosh get his due, though.  Just like when Kelda turned around and left the Scims.

[Spiritmon]

In one thing I must agree...I felt useless in this final battle. Barely was able to lend any significant damage against Deoxys. Most of the damage was only done by Nathan, and the rest of us barelly could do any damage. Even receiving a Mega Launcher Dark Pulse barely have done anything to Deoxys. It even not Flinch or anything.

I feel like, even if I didnt participate in the battle, I would not make any difference. And the thing about not having a Artefact its also a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, I have a Moltres Egg, but that flames did not even hurt Deoxys. I was expecting the flames of a legendary would hurt another legendary.

And the worse thing is, is that we pretty much finish the plot of the story and beat the final villain...And thats kinda leave a not so good taste in my mouth for this ending.

[Iron]

TBH I never expected an alliance with the Scims, so yeah I had to run a little to keep up. And after that I figured you'd be bored if the Scims did everything. Those are fair criticisms, and maybe we'll get to address them a bit in the diceless portion of the campaign. In diceless, PD encounters will be more like puzzles. In this diced one, the goal was to require teamwork to win, and I think that goal was met although it would have been better if you'd had four artifacts from the start. (+ the frozen roar once party size grew to five).

[Iron]

Oh, the intended use of the Frozen Roar is twofold:

-Using it to Helping Hand a move allows secondary effects to trigger, as we saw with Honchkrow.
-Using it as a Pokemon's move will create a flinching effect

There just wasn't really time to explore these options.



It was intended to be an encounter where HP wasn't everything, but maybe that's hard to pull off in a Pokemon game where we expect them to be everything.

[Spiritmon]

Oh, the intended use of the Frozen Roar is twofold:

-Using it to Helping Hand a move allows secondary effects to trigger, as we saw with Honchkrow.
-Using it as a Pokemon's move will create a flinching effect

There just wasn't really time to explore these options.

Well, thats because it wasnt exactly be  very much clear in the effects. Not to mentioned the fact that we didnt know Deoxys was immune to everything. 

But, is there something meaniful to continue the campaigh? I mean...we complete the goal of beat the final boss. Is there something left to continue?

[Dragonstrike]

(I'm sorta expecting resistance myself, tbh. I'll have Terra do everything in his power to forestall such, but I'm kinda confused why nobody has tried to stop my character by now.)

Well a) none of the other players are online right now, b) I don't want to start a PvP in this scenario if Iron might have other ideas, c) I've been at work, which is why it took me so long to at least ask my question at a minimum