I want to make a case-in-point that I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing.
First, my playstyle:
I make my leader hold an Escape Orb. This way, if I get into a bad situation, I can just press “z” and get out without having to go through a menu. I ALWAYS do this, regardless of what dungeon I am using. I also always make sure I am well-stocked with supplies as well, although I generally don’t bring reviver seeds because I need them for HT.
I tend to use LOS, AOE, and otherwise long-range moves instead of melee attacks whenever possible. Sniping > bashing. I also don’t just run into monster houses; I’m a slow, cautious player.
The situation:
I was in mid-Southern Sea, and had all of my party alive as level 41s. I hid behind a wall to snipe at enemies with my dragonbreath, when suddenly INSTA-DEATH striked. Apparently there was a huge enemy group that I couldn’t see, and somehow they could hit me (hard to tell, a bit laggy). This was probably through watergun/pulse spam.
I switched to a bulkier poke to thin the herd, but died nearly instantly again. Second poke down.
I switched to my third and attempted to run away hoping I was just a few tiles into the deathtrap, but it fared no better than the rest. At this point, despite being several feet away from anything visible, I was trapped.
I switched to my leader, hoping the random blinking “immunity” effect would kick in for long enough to let me escape orb out of there. I braced myself at the menu. “What would you like to do?” I hit “switch.”
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-
“You have fainted. What would you like to do?” GIVEUP was the only option that graced me.
I was dead. Despite a reasonable amount of preparation (and more than several bother to do) I lost everything. My crossed fingers did me no favors when I looked in my inventory and saw my leveling item had been destroyed.
This is about the 3rd time within a couple months playing this has happened to me, only this time I lost my currently most valuable possession, something I cannot get back for a long time.
So, case in point:
You can play as reserved as you want and be as prepared as you want, but it just does not matter in specific situations that, in my opinion are too common.
[spoilerWhat do I suggest you do about this?:3q5ndfvz]Doing just one of these will stop this from happening again.
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Make the blinking immunity DEFINITE when switching. Since we aren"t turn based here, I already waste a hold slot with an escape orb. The least you could let me do is use it! D:
“But it is definite!”
No, it"s not, or I wouldn"t have died in several situations. On occasion, it doesn"t work even if I go up stairs despite not pressing anything and being alone. I think it has to do with large room status effect things, not sure. Regardless…
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Make wind/giveups spare your most valuable item. [I said this earlier]
“Look, if you don"t want to lose your valuable items, don"t use them!”
Does “Hey, I went up 80-90 floors for a wonder chest! I will now never touch it again” make sense to you? Me either. Next time somebody dies with one of these things, I believe they either keep it and lose everything else or have a greatly reduced chance of losing it. This wouldn"t have helped me in my case because I"m to nubby for such artifacts, but if I had lost one…I"d have quit. I can recover from this. What bothers me is that I was a trigger from escape and it still didn"t work. Which leads me to my next suggestion:
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Have escape orb activation take priority over applied damage/moves.
For example, in the instance of me insta-death-lagging in Southern Sea, I"d have warped into the inn first before the moves hit me. I"m not sure how spamming “Z” the millisecond I switch out is overshadowed by movespam of untimely death, but I don"t like it. At all.
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And thus ends my mini-novel of why I disagree with the current system and how to improve it in a balanced manner.