the issue with status skills in JRPGs

[CG4R12I4N]

Like I said, FF games and others like it (even DQ) are usually relatively easy you can pretty much forget status ailments even existed unless it's the enemies doing it instead, their gameplay is pretty much "bigger numbers go brrr".
Only few mainline games actually have use for status ailments like FF8, and even then they're usually better used for Junction purpose to get bigger numbers anyway.

 

[trickybus]

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Monster Sanctuary, and that's likely because it's so heavily based on Pokemon. Status effects also stack and can be affected by a monster's skills, so you can build a team around status effects and make your opponent miserable.

 

[DanVzare]

If it doesn't do damage, it goes in the bin. That's always been my outlook with RPGs.

I always figured it was because I wasn't playing skillfully enough. But now that I've read your reason for hating status skills, I've realized that I don't use them because they're usually useless.
(Mind you, equipment that causes status effects, are usually high on my priority list.)

 

[BunnyLain]

Oh boy! I get to talk about how I hate JRPG's for being a mess!
So first of all, the combat in these games is essentially a puzzle at the high end, at the low end it's basically a time sink to press confirm on attack several times over. Again, as DanVzare said:

If it doesn't do damage, it goes in the bin.

Because ultimately using a status effect is a whole extra lot of time and in the majority of the time wasting fights you would rather not use resource in, it's a pain in the ass to go into the magic menu, select stun, watch the effect maybe miss because you didn't know its only 20% accurate and then proceed to just select attack a whole bunch again because it's a random encounter.

That's probably one of the main issues with JRPG's, because people are playing them for the story and not the combat puzzle, most encounters you go into without knowing what the status effect really does and who can even be hit with it. Shin Megami is often okay with stuff like that, but again there's often better options to kill an enemy with.

Stuff like poison and things normally hit you harder because the game has a chance to whittle you down over multiple encounters while you are focused on ending the one you're on so the next one can pop up.

A lot of JRPG's also don't have the same level of variation in combat as other games do, so a DOT is just that, damage over time and if it does less damage over that time than it would to just hit them. Not great. In other games a DOT might put additional pressure on the enemy because now they need to think about the damage they might be taking. JRPG's often no, just take your turn and don't waste too much time so you can get to the next story beat.

To go back to status effects, they dont scale. JRPG's often have leveling in them to make yourself stronger and if the status effect isnt going to get stronger, its going to be out scaled. This is especially bad in a JRPG because leveling is so important in them and again, not much variability. A stun is a stun, there's turns, no movement, no positioning. Just health bars to beat down to 0.

I feel the problem with a lot of JRPG's is they just approach combat all wrong, it's a chore and mostly not fun. A few games get that they're puzzle games really like the FFT series, or in pokemon's case a PvP game where they can mix things up.

So that's my rant that's not formatted very well at all, it's been a long time since I got deep into a JRPG and it seems a lot of the re-releases push towards making the games easier or just be an action game.

 

[miguk]

In the Xenoblade series, you can use debuff attacks successfully in most battles to good effect. In particular, the Break, Stagger, and Topple debuffs work on most enemies including bosses.

 

[Dyne]

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Monster Sanctuary, and that's likely because it's so heavily based on Pokemon. Status effects also stack and can be affected by a monster's skills, so you can build a team around status effects and make your opponent miserable.

That was a really fun game

 

[King Koopa's iconKing Koopa]

Play Shin Megami Tensei or Monster Sanctuary. Buffs/debuffs and status moves are important to the combat especially with bosses.

 

[Prism_Red]

Useful in tactics? I never found oracles that good (low percentages for success, the zodiac alignment system makes this unreliable). The only negative status skills I ever found good are Mustadio's snipe and even that I never found that powerful (seal evil causing petrification is great on that one map when he is a guest, but I think that is about it). Also, why bother getting an oracle to work when it is more effective/easier to just focus on damage?
View attachment 24504

Ah my bad, I meant Tactics Advance, there are classes whose skill sets geared more toward inflicting status effect with high percentage of success, each race usually has one, like Ninja for hume, vierra's Assassin, or moogle's Juggler, also Time Mage class for both moogle and nu mou. Most bosses are not completely immune to these effects as well.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

To be honest, in OG Tactics enemies also had quite low chance of inflicting status effects aside of some special skills so they're pretty much balanced with your party as well. And all the bosses except Lucavi ones are pretty much vulnerable to most ailments really, especially ones with decent hit chance like Blind and Immobilize.
But Tactics Advance & 2 do up the status effects usefulness a degree higher thanks to removing the Charge Turns and the Law Card system. And some of the more useless ailments in other games like Sleep is actually quite useful this time due to many side objectives requiring it.

Like I said before, the reasons why status effects are mostly useless in many traditional JRPGs are because the games are usually relatively easy to players (thus they make the bosses immune to them to compensate) and not having much gameplay objective besides defeating enemies. On the harder, tactical ones where leveling doesn't really make the game much easier, status effects usually are pretty helpful for many things when brute forcing with damage numbers simply doesn't quite cut it.

 

[MasterEn]

To be honest, in OG Tactics enemies also had quite low chance of inflicting status effects aside of some special skills so they're pretty much balanced with your party as well. And all the bosses except Lucavi ones are pretty much vulnerable to most ailments really, especially ones with decent hit chance like Blind and Immobilize.
But Tactics Advance & 2 do up the status effects usefulness a degree higher thanks to removing the Charge Turns and the Law Card system. And some of the more useless ailments in other games like Sleep is actually quite useful this time due to many side objectives requiring it.

Like I said before, the reasons why status effects are mostly useless in many traditional JRPGs are because the games are usually relatively easy to players (thus they make the bosses immune to them to compensate) and not having much gameplay objective besides defeating enemies. On the harder, tactical ones where leveling doesn't really make the game much easier, status effects usually are pretty helpful for many things when brute forcing with damage numbers simply doesn't quite cut it.

tactics advance 1 and 2 have the card law system. it's much less bullshit in 2 though.

 

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

I feel like FFA2 had more effective effects but yeah most of them were from on hit effects (I think my Beastmaster Nu Mou had a bell that put enemies to sleep pretty often). If anything you were more encouraged to use effects of spells bouncing off your character or absorb certain elements while your Elementalist would cast a spell that would hit everyone on the map and have your passive skills for extra cheese. If I think really hard on it I think most enemies that would be susceptible to status aliment skills/spells would be humanoid enemies which depending on your game of choice would be very few of. FFA2 really is an easy game that allows you a lot of freedom on how you play but since most FF titles usually gave a lot of immunities to status aliments for more beefy enemies and almost all bosses but more weakness to elemental attacks (which would be an easier concept to grasp) I guess most players would seek those bonuses and ignore green magic all together.

 

[trickybus]

Like I said before, the reasons why status effects are mostly useless in many traditional JRPGs are because the games are usually relatively easy to players (thus they make the bosses immune to them to compensate) and not having much gameplay objective besides defeating enemies.

Big agree and I wish that wasn't the case. There is exactly zero incentive to use status ailments in most JRPGs and it feels like developers just throw them in anyway because they're such a trope at this point.

I had this experience playing P5G. A party member would learn a status ailment, it would sound useful on paper, then inevitably fail in battle. Only P5G had the audacity to make status ailments act like elemental weaknesses, in that ailments only affect some monsters, meaning I have to put in extra work to figure out which ailment affects who on top of playing the guessing game with elements. Why even bother adding them in at that point?

 

[starseeker300]

from what i recall, Final Fantasy 13 does a good job of making debuffing the enemy actually worthwhile. as others have said pokemon as well (i remember cheesing ultra necrozma in usum by just using toxic on it).

one game that actually had an in depth system for debuffing was kh 358/2 days, but the only for enemies on the player wierdly. a lot of the game was trying to play around those and adapting your loadout to the unique challenges of each mission.

and other games that ive played like chrono cross didnt even have debuffing in it at all.

 

[What's His Face]

Been playing through The Legend of Heroes: Trails in... series lately. NOT optimizing for status ailments/infliction is the easiest way to get annihilated. Second easiest is not understanding how to create an evasion-tank. Third easiest is not understanding how to manipulate turn order.

Nothing sucks worse than taking on a boss with an under-leveled party (as is the norm in this series), then the boss hits a 50% HP recovery. REPEATEDLY.

 

[Dyne]

Been playing through The Legend of Heroes: Trails in... series lately. NOT optimizing for status ailments/infliction is the easiest way to get annihilated. Second easiest is not understanding how to create an evasion-tank. Third easiest is not understanding how to manipulate turn order.

Nothing sucks worse than taking on a boss with an under-leveled party (as is the norm in this series), then the boss hits a 50% HP recovery. REPEATEDLY.

I really love that series. I got a bit burned out after Cold Steel 3, but I really need to get back into it

 

[What's His Face]

I'm near the end of Cold Steel II right now. In my case, the burn-out (and good God it's there...) is mitigated by the fact that I'm using save editors to max my money and sepith... and made worse that I have a tendency of doing stupid stuff like getting everyone to max Link. At the rate I'm going though, I'll likely be done with Daybreak II (releasing tomorrow, 02/14/2025) when Farewell O Zemuria releases in English...

 

[WerewolfJones]

While I agree status effects get underutilized in RPGs, I’m kind of surprised to see people saying they don’t use them in SMT series. Statuses are very useful in SMT, especially in early game before you have buffs/debuffs and in harder modes where crowd control in random encounters is really important. Status effects are pretty much how you survive early game Nocturne on Hard.

I don’t really get bothered by status effects generally not working on bosses, but I do think it should be more that bosses resist status instead of always flat negating it.

Oddly, status effects can actually be really useful in Dragon Quest, especially in III.

 

[moonbits]

I use them all the time in Atlus games. If I can't exploit their weakness or have someone who is weak against them I use Pulinpa or anything else to give myself some space to deal more damage before they can do their turn.