Journal

Status Infliction Probability HUD

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As our development team continues to play other classic RPGs for inspiration, we realized that a key missing element in the Last Dream II battle system was showing the probability of inflicting status effects. It can be frustrating not knowing what the probability to inflict a particular status effect is and whether you are wasting your time trying to paralyze, blind, or confuse a powerful enemy.

We have recently added a new heads-up display element to battle that will show the probability of application for the status effects specific to a skill. The video clip shows the Knight with his Smite skill upgraded to inflict both paralysis and blind. When he targets a particular enemy (the Miasma Bubble in this case), the HUD display has new additional fields that show the probability to inflict each status effect (specific to that enemy). Due to space constraints, only three status effects are shown; however, that should give the player a good idea of the overall probability. If we find in future testing that this limitation causes problems, we’ll address it at that time.

For now, though, we feel that this is a major improvement in terms of knowing when its worthwhile to attempt to inflict status effects. One of the big changes to Last Dream II is that bosses will no longer be immune to all status effects (as was largely the case in previous Last Dream games). We felt that this led to significant departures in strategy between normal enemies (who could easily be inflicted with status effects) and bosses (who were immune). The probability to inflict status effects on bosses will be significantly lower, but the player will have the opportunity to increase that probability by focusing on the new WILL attribute that controls status effect resistance and infliction probabilities.