De-cluttering the Archives / Status effects

[Elgareth]

Hi there,

first, I'm playing the german Version, so maybe some Things are just Translation Problems, however, there still are multiple effects that do the same Thing (or I couldn't find the difference yet). This makes it unecessarily complicated to learn what the Status effects actually do.
Apart from that, the wording in the Archives is wildly inconsistent and should be normalized IMHO.

For example, "Stunned" and "Concussion" both disable Actions and Movement, why even have Stunned and Concussion, instead of just Stunned? Additionally, one says "Unit is unable to move and do Actions", while the other one says "Unit is unable to do Actions and move" in the Archives (at least in the german Version)... just Switch one around to make the formulation consistent.
The same goes for multiple effects that disable movement, but allow Actions and vice versa, why are there multiple names for the same Thing? Especially since the wording in german is Kind of random compared to the effect.
For example "Handlungsunfähig" translates to "Unable to act", thus I automatically assumed the unit can't do Actions, and probably can't move as well. But this Status effect just disables movement, and still allows Actions (I learned that the hard way, as a "handlungsunfähige" unit shot me in the face )
Then there are many Kind of synonymous words that seemingly random disable either Actions or movement or both, examples "Erschüttert"(concussioned), "Gelähmt"(paralyzed), "Betäubt"(stunned), "Handlungsunfähig"(unable to act?), "Deaktiviert" all Kind of mean completely disabled. Now it's fairly obvious that deactivated should only work on Cyborgs/Mechanicals, but the other ones don't.
Apart from that, the "sticky slime stun", for example of the abyssian, is called "Verhüllt" in german, which translates to "shrouded", which sounds more like a smoke Cloud than actually "covered in sticky slime", so maybe something like "festgesetzt" (stuck) would be better there.
These are just examples, so there are probably way more Problems with the wording in this game and it could probably gain much from a big overhaul honestly.

TLDR:
Descriptions of Status effects in the Archives are inconsistent, many Status effects do the exact same thing, and the wording of them (at least in german) is very ambiguous, making it unnecessarily complicated to understand which effect does what.

 

[TibblesTheCat]

Stunned is an arc based debuff, concussed a physical one, they are the result of different checks and probably also different heals can target them

 

[Elgareth]

Stunned is an arc based debuff, concussed a physical one, they are the result of different checks and probably also different heals can target them

I thin only psionic debuff and non-psionic can be cured by different things.
Why can't arc and physical both simply stun, just using a different resistance-check?

 

[Millthunder]

I thin only psionic debuff and non-psionic can be cured by different things.
Why can't arc and physical both simply stun, just using a different resistance-check?

I agree with your point, for instance there is just one kind of stagger no matter the source. For simplier recognition I would prefer to have the same effects have same names. In addition, when active on a unit there should still remain info/mechanics separatedly for each source. So that a different source of effect could be dispelled by different dispells and the source might be noted in the bracket similarly to attack/buff type.

 

[Elgareth]

I agree with your point, for instance there is just one kind of stagger no matter the source. For simplier recognition I would prefer to have the same effects have same names. In addition, when active on a unit there should still remain info/mechanics separatedly for each source. So that a different source of effect could be dispelled by different dispells and the source might be noted in the bracket similarly to attack/buff type.

Yeah, a "Stunned (physical)" would be fine by me, as would the accordingly coloured dot in front of the effect (blue dot+stunned for electrical etc.)...
If there are cures that for example only cure electrical status effects, you'd still have an easy way to check if the stun was from electrical or not.

I'd even say easier than the current system even, because I for example don't know if crippled is only applied by biochem, or cramp counts as psi or non-psi effect.
There are just so many that I always mix them up :-/

 

[Millthunder]

Exactly