Something I have learned about most every RPG gameFollow

Status ailments are worthless to try and cast on the bad guys but they can sure ruin your lives when they cast them on you! I have found this on almost every game I have ever played. Was even more assured of this last night while playing Lost Odyssey. The amount of time and mana it takes to cast on trash mobs is wasted for about any status ailment since you could have prob either killed them or nearly killed them with that turn by casting a dps spell on them. And of course when you do get to a boss fight and think "Wow maybe poison will actually do enough damage and be worth casting here?". WRONG since almost every boss in every RPG game ever made is pretty much immune to about any status ailment you can cast. Sure you can poison or sleep a trash npc but why bother since they will be dead so quickly? In fact many times when you finally think how useful it would be to silence that 1 trash mob in the back row who is chain casting AE's you find out after wasting a turn "Oh guess even trash mobs are immune to them.".

Why bother even letting us cast the stuff?

Hey, lost odyssey has skill slots for a reason. You don't want status effects? Equip the right skills.

Oh, there is one fight in that game you have to win by using poison, but it's a backyard battle in the fourth tier.

Status effects haven't really been rethought since some of the first RPGs emegered, which is a problem. They're more cosmetic than functional. You have the problem exactly right. They're not worth casting on trash, and bosses are immune because the status effects are broken.

I think there are a few key design problems that need to be fixed to make status ailments worth using.

1. They need to be reduce in power. Status ailments like "death" or "petrified" should simply not exist. Bosses need to be immune to them to present any sort of challenge at all. By reducing their effectiveness boss possibilities can now be opened up. This also makes status ailments more fair against players, so that items and equipment which make one compeltely immune are not necessary for specific encounters.

2. Trash fights are too short and lack any sort of real challenge. Trash encounters need to be stronger. Increasing the duration and difficulty of trash encounters increases the usefulness of status ailments on those enemies. It also presents opportunity for some actual strategy, as it is hard to to do anything but spam AOE attacks for two turn encounters. Another idea is to add a damage component to status ailments. When I cast "blind" I not only blind the enemy, but I'm using a slightly less powerful damage spell as well. This makes them more turn efficient.

3. While the type of status ailment may determine the priority in which it is cured (a petrify condition being more important than poison) they're generally interchangeable in how they are handled. For any status ailment the player simply uses staus ailment curing item/spell. There should be some difference in how each is handled.

That's mostly what I intended. I suppose I didn't say that well enough.

Less throwaway fights, more meaningful fights.

This is not of true of Morrowind, unless you use one of the numerous ways to cheat teh game (alchemy, 100% chameloen etc.) Paralyse is pretty damn useful. But yeah, in general, status ailments serve only to annoy the player.

First thing that came to my mind was when I freaked the hell out because Lulu was about to get the Death spell in FFX. Then I was so sad to see the only things I would bother to cast it on were all immune to it anyway...

I hate the Death spell. I've killed more undead by throwing Phoenix Downs at them than normal mobs with Death. And FFX is jam-packed with monsters and bosses that cast Death, or have Death as part of an attack (especially bad as part of their normal attack). And then they go all the way and have a boss that turns you into zombies and casts Full-Life!

GAH!

Not too much later is a boss that turns you into zombies while also casting Death on everyone at once, so you can't unzombie yourself to heal.

I HATE status changes!

You mean FF8, not 7, right? 8 with the gunblades. Like the reaction symbols in Legend of Dragoon.

I'm torn on the issue. On one hand, it adds user input. On the other hand... it adds user input! I hate it if my reaction time screws **** up. I'm playing RPGs because I don't like the fast paced, reactions needed for FPS games.

Hmmm, Maybe I'm not completely sure what you mean by status ailments, but if you're simply talking about debuffs and the like, in EQ these effects were not only effective, but often necessary.

Yeah, I didn't mention anything because you guys were mainly talking about console games but debuffs play a huge role in Everquest. Not so much the "Lower target's strength by 10" stuff but the "slows" and spells to lower spell resistance play a big part in raids and even single groups.

In City of Heroes, my Radiation/Radiation defender specializes in debuffs and is sometimes the difference between a tough slog and a cakewalk when going on missions.