Battle System and Mechanics
| 2022 |
In the game, battles are turn based and take place in a 7x7 grid, you will have two main commands:
- Abilities: Execute attacks, heal yourself, or use other abilities.
- Menu: Opens up a menu with four commands to choose from:
- Items: Use items in your inventory.
- Pass: Switch to another ally.
- Wait: Allow enemy and ally charge gauges to gradually fill.
- Flee: Attempt to escape from combat, this option may be disabled during certain encounters such as boss fights.
- Teleport: Replaces the Flee command when Akira is in the party.
During battles, your team and the enemies will be able to move in the 7x7 grid and use techniques to deal damage, inflict status effects, heal allies and create damage fields. All techniques have a specific range, area of effect and different damage types. Some techniques can raise (Buff) or decrease (Debuff) stats.
Stats
There are 2 stats that only player characters have:
- Attack: Increases your damage against an enemy by its value. For example, if you were to do 10 points of damage but have 25 points in the Attack stat, you would do 35 points of damage.
- Only applies for certain attacks that "use" your weapon. For example, for Oboromaru it would only apply for attacks like "Shadow Slash" or "Deepest Dark" in which he uses his sword but not for attacks like "Firefall" or "Waterspout" in which he does not attack with his sword.
- Defense: Decreases damage taken by its value. For example, if you were to take 100 points of damage and have 10 points of defense, you would take 90 points of damage instead.
There are 5 stats that are shared between player and enemy, these are:
- HP: Number of Hit Points.
- In the case of the ally, if it reaches 0, the ally is Incapacitated. Incapacitated allies remain in the battlefield and are not able to perform any actions. They can also be revived if healed or immediately dismissed from battle if hit once.
- In the case of an enemy, if it reaches 0, the enemy is defeated and permanently erased from combat.
- Physical Attack: Increases the damage of moves that rely on this stat.
- Physical Defense: Reduces the damage caused by physical attacks.
- Special Attack: Increases the damage of moves that rely on this stat.
- Special Defense: Reduces the damage caused by special attacks.
- Speed: The main movement stat. The higher your speed, the less you fill the enemy's charge gauge thus gaining the ability to move more before the enemy's turn. Your charging techniques will also charge faster.
- Accuracy: Determines whether your attacks connect or not with the enemy. Also determines how many hits will impact an enemy in multi-hit attacks.
- Evasion: Increases the chance of evading an attack and of receiving less hits in a multi-hit attack.
Techniques
For information on Techniques, check the Technique Guide page.
Status Effects
In Live A Live, some techniques can cause a variety of status effects. Here you can find a list of all status effects in the game and how they affect player characters and enemies.
Paralysis, Sleep, Poison and Stone status effects
Paralysis: The Paralysis status effect prevents the target from attacking, using items, moving or turning. It also cancels charging techniques. This status effect takes a long time to recover.
Sleep: The Sleep status effect prevents the target from attacking, using items, moving or turning. It also cancels charging techniques. The player or enemy affected by this status effect will lose it if hit by any attack.
Poison: The Poison status effect (not to be confused with the Poison field tile) makes the target lose a percentage of their maximum amount of Hit Points as turns pass.
Petrification: The Petrification status effect petrifies the target. If a player is affected, it will remain on the battlefield unable to take any action while still being able to take damage. Player characters are considered KO'd in this status. If a petrified character's HP is depleted, they will lose the status and become KO'd. If an enemy is affected, it will instantly be killed and defeated as normal.
Restrain, Snare and Intoxication status effects
These status effects work in a different way than those previously mentioned, as they can disable techniques. However, each technique has individual values as to where they get disabled or not by these status effects. (To know how these status effects affect each technique, please check the "Elemental Affinities" chart that is present in every technique page. For now at least, I will make a list in a later date)
Restrain: The Restrain status effect prevents the target from using moves that require the use of hands/arms.
Snare: The Snare status effect prevents the target from using moves that require the use of feet/legs. It also prevents the target from moving or turning.
Intoxication: The Intoxication status effect prevents the target from using certain moves. It also causes the target to move randomly. Player characters affected by this status effect are commonly locked to using their basic techniques.
Status effects and enemy attack patterns
In an enemy's action routine, if a target has a certain Status effect, there is a tendency from enemies to avoid using techniques that can cause that same status effect. This is why some moves are not used repeatedly.
For example, Max Morgan can use German Suplex, which has a chance to inflict the Paralysis status effect. Most of the time, after paralyzing a target with German Suplex, he will tend to use Max Bomber or any of his other attacks, which causes no status effects. This is due to the AI not wanting to repeat a move that causes the same status effect.
Neck status effect
There is a hidden status effect called "Neck" also known as "Stiff Neck". Since an icon is not displayed when this status effect is acquired, it is difficult to tell when in has been inflicted and when it has been cured. It is unknown what symptoms the character that suffers from Neck Stiffness presents, but according to the above rule, Neck Stiffness causes enemies to avoid using a move multiple times. This hidden status effect was added to set certain attack patterns in enemies.
For example, during The Great Aja fight he has two Bite moves, the Bite (Blue) can cause the Neck status effect, while the Bite (Yellow) can cause the Poison status effect. If you were to be poisoned by his Yellow bite and have the Neck status effect from his Blue bite, there is a guaranteed chance that Great Asia will use another of his techniques against you as he won't use his bite moves against you due to enemy AIs avoiding the use of techniques that cause the same status effect that you have.
Counterattacks
Some techniques function as a counterattack. Each technique is set to counter a certain element/group of elements. A counterattack will only occur if the certain element required for the counterattack is used against the user, if the target is within range of the counterattack technique and if the user of the counterattack is not under any status effect that prevents the use of the counterattack.
For example, the Earthen Heart Shifu has the technique Unseen Bow's Arrow, which is exclusively a counterattack. Unseen Bow's Arrow is set to counterattack only against attacks of the Projectile element, meaning that it is only activated if the Shifu (the user) is hit by a technique of that same element. It will also only be used if the target of the counter is within the range of the 2nd or third tile from all directions and diagonals from the Shifu, this being the range of the counterattack. If the Master is not under any status effect, the counter will be used.
Overpowering the enemy and Obstacles
For information on the Break Down and Obstacles mechanic, check the Overpowering Enemies page.
Behavioral Changes
When an enemy uses a specific technique or receives a hit from a technique of a specific element, it may suffer of a Behavioral Change, which is an alteration to the normal behavior of an enemy. There are 9 types of behavioral changes.
- Tech Limit 1: Prevents the enemy from using the technique in its first slot.
- Tech Limit 2: Prevents the enemy from using the techniques in its first and second slot.
- Tech Limit 3: Prevents the enemy from using the techniques in its first, second and third slot.
Stun: The enemy will be unable to take any actions and is more vulnerable to attacks. Prevents the enemy from using the techniques in all its slots.
Charm: The enemy will attempt to approach any player character. Prevents the enemy from using the techniques in all its slots.
Terror: The enemy will attempt to flee from any player character. Prevents the enemy from using the technique in its first and second slot.
Fury: The enemy will focus on attacking and moving in range to attack. Prevents the enemy from using the technique in its second, third and fourth.
Confusion: The enemy will be unable to move properly around the battlefield.
Vertigo: The enemy will keep turning in place. Prevents the enemy from using the techniques in its first, second and third slot.
Weaknesses and Resistances
Player characters and enemies each have weakness and resistance values against elements. Damage can either increase or decrease against an enemy depending on their weaknesses or resistances.
Back attacks and Side attacks
It is of common sense that in Live A Live, attacks from the side and back have a higher damage output and accuracy. First of all, there are 3 areas: the back, the side, the front.
In this example, the target is a 2x2 enemy facing towards the bottom right corner. The blue area is the front, the yellow area, while odd at first, is the side considering that the enemy is facing in a 45° angle, and the back, of course, is the area the enemy is not facing.
Side attacks and back attacks have a higher hit rate and more damage than frontal attacks. This is because when attacking from the back or side, the level of an enemy is reduced by a certain value set for each enemy. Since the Level stat is heavily related to the hit rate and damage calculations, side and back attacks deal more damage than frontal attacks.
With this Level change in mind, the level of an enemy may not be less than 0. This means that if an opponent has a low Level stat and is applied with a level decrease, the difference in damage and accuracy may not be that big.
Inside the game's data, each enemy has a value that defines how much their level will decrease when hit by a side attack or a back attack. For example, the values for Armstrong are of -8 and -4, meaning that the level is subtracted by 8 for a side attack and subtracted by 4 for a back attack. The closer these values are to 0, the less it can be said that an enemy has a blind spot.
It should be noted that not all enemies are weaker on their sides or back, some are completely immune to the effects of side and back attacks such as the Giant Face since it has no "blind spots".
Back and Side attack values for the allies
The heroes also have set Back and Side attack level changes set for each one of them. The changes are somewhat dependent on who the character is and their circumstances. Here is a list of the values for each character and the special titles given by Zsnsk.
- Side -0 Back -0 [Shinzan Ken Roshi] - Earthen Heart Shifu
- Side -1 Back -0 [Brave Hero] - Hasshe
- Side -1 Back -1 [Robot] - Cube and Mimic Mammet
- Side -1 Back -2 [Superhero] - Captain Square
- Side -2 Back -1 [Expert Fighter] - Uranus, Lei Kugo, Oboromaru and Lawless
- Side -3 Back -1 [Android] - Taroimo
- Side -3 Back -2 [Gunner or Esper] - Sundown, Sakamoto Ryoma and Akira Tadokoro
- Side -4 Back -2 [Ordinary] - Gori, Zaki, Yun Jou, Mad Dog and Masaru Takahara
- Side -6 Back -4 [Careless] - Oersted, Pogo and Hong Hakka
- Side -8 Back -5 [Maiden] - Streibough, Beru