Moveset Creation Guidelines

    So you’ve written up your character’s personality and backstory! You’ve picked out a faceclaim of a trending anime character that you’re definitely not gonna want to change when another anime you like comes out, and you’ve even went so far as to commission an artist to draw you up the coolest custom Digimon ever as your character’s partner! Now you’re ready to submit your profile so you can start playing your new character and fulfill your lifelong dream of having the most beloved character on a Digimon roleplaying site!

    ...But what’s this? You have to create your own moveset? Well, that’s neat! Your Digimon’s clearly the best Digimon ever created, so it’s only natural that you’ll want to make the most powerful moveset that you can think of, right?

    Well… we’re here to tell you that might not be the best idea out there. Make a moveset too powerful, and the lovely people grading it are going to nerf it to oblivion. It’s what they do, and how they get through life. But you still want to be kind of awesome, and no one wants to make a terrible moveset, unless that’s your gimmick, you weirdo. And whether you’re new here or a veteran player, this guide is designed to do just that!

    If you’re a new player, it might be a good idea to look at other people’s profiles and take a look at their movesets. You’ll likely see a lot of terms you’re familiar with from other forms of media, even if you don’t know fully how they work in the context of this RP. But before we begin I’d like to remind you that this guide is for creating movesets. If you want a guide for how combat works, look at this thread right here!

    So to explain, we have something of a pseudo-stat-based mechanics here at DFRP. Health Bars, Stamina, and Attack and Defense stats as you know them aren’t a thing. Movesets aside, any player’s Champion-level Digimon is assumed to be just as strong, fast, and as tough as any other player’s Champion. The only clear measure of power is the form of the Digimon, like so…

• A Digimon of a higher level is about four times (or 300%) stronger than the form below it. So a MetalGreymon could feasibly fight four Greymon at once, and it would take about four MetalGreymon to handle a single WarGreymon.
  
• Armor Champion, Armor Ultimate, H-Spirit and B-Spirit Fractions, and Incomplete X2 and X3 forms, also known as Assisted Champion and Assisted Ultimate Digimon, are about 3/4 times (75%) as strong as their counterparts.
  
• Twin Digimon, Mercenaries, and members of a Xros army that aren’t the main partner are about 3/4 times (75%) as strong as a main partner or a single solo Digimon. This means that Assisted Champions and Ultimates for twins would be about half (50%) as strong as a single, complete Champion or Ultimate level.
  

    Without abilities, that’s all the stats you have to keep in mind. Easy enough, but your Digimon’s abilities can change that up a bit!

    One more thing you’ve probably noticed is how some moves have cooldowns. You probably know what these are, but for DFRP, cooldowns are meant to balance out how certain abilities work. If certain abilities were able to be used every turn of combat, it would outright ruin any hope we have of having a balanced game, so they’re there to make things a little more balanced so that fights between players or NPCs can still be a fun experience!

    Abilities are separated into two categories - active and passive abilities.
    

• Active abilities are abilities you choose to use on your posting turn. Without special exceptions, you’re limited to using only one of these per post.
  
• Passive abilities are automatic abilities that work in the background, giving your character a little more flavor than “hits things real good”.
  

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    Active abilities can generally be categorized into these categories...

    Damage - If you wanna end a fight but stink at negotiating, damage abilities are the way to go. These abilities don’t need a cooldown, but you can increase their power by increasing it anyway.

    Shield/Dodge - There are some nasty attacks out there that you don’t want to get hit by, and shield moves are the way to stop them. Unlike damage moves, shield moves will stop a move of any cooldown, so long as...

• The move doesn’t pierce through shields
• The attacker isn’t a higher-level Digimon
• The move isn’t an absurdly powerful attack, like a Once-Per-Thread ability.

    Increasing the cooldown of a shield move only increases how many attacks it can defend against.
    - A 2-post cooldown will guard against one attack. 
    - A 3-post cooldown can block all the attacks thrown your way for a single round. 
    - A 4-post cooldown shield move can also reflect a single attack back at their attacker.

    Shield moves sound pretty OP, but they’re nigh-useless in the face of piercing attacks. Dodge moves work pretty much the same way, though unlike shield moves, you’re unable to block an attack for someone, so they’re useless if you’re not the attack target. And even though it’s a dodge move, you still can’t dodge piercing attacks, for balance’s sake.

    Healing - Wanna do the opposite of damage, and make the fight drag out even longer? Then healing moves are what you need! Healing is just “negative damage”, so it’s fairly self-explanatory. Keep note that healing tends to be weaker than an attack of the same cooldown. After all, if healing skills were just as powerful as damaging skills, then fights would literally go on forever! Healing skills heal at a rate of Standard attack -1, so a 2-cooldown healing move would remove the damage of a 1-cooldown attack.

    Piercing - Your opponents are playing lame and using an incredibly defensive moveset? Then you’re going to want to have an ability that pierces their defenses! They can ignore your opponent’s shield and dodge moves entirely, but they’re weaker than a standard attack of the same cooldown. If you add full piercing to your attack, then it’s a mandatory 2-post cooldown. A partial-piercing effect would be a 1-post cooldown.

    Buff/Debuff - Just because we don’t have a real stat system in place doesn’t mean you can’t increase your Digimon’s abilities! These kinds of abilities can make your Digimon go faster, stronger, tougher, any way you wanna buff yourself, you probably can! Alternatively, if you wanna weaken your opponent in some way, that works, too! Just remember that these kinds of effects tend to last a maximum of three posts, and tend to have cooldowns equal to the number of turns that they last! Additionally, their cooldowns start when these effects end, meaning they’re deceptively long.

    Snare - Stun moves, or abilities that prevent your opponent from attacking and moving, aren’t allowed unless they’re OPT, because no one wants to get locked into a stun loop. Doesn’t make for a compelling story when one player is literally doing nothing, after all! But while you can’t stop your opponent from doing both moving and attacking, you can limit them from doing one or the other! Just note that these abilities tend to have a longer cooldown than the duration of its effect, so you can’t permanently stop your opponent from either moving or attacking.

    Area of Effect - Not all fights are one-on-one, and Area of Effect attacks, or AoE, are a surefire way to hit a group of enemies all at once! They tend to be at a minimum of a 2-post cooldown (unless you want a really small AoE), and their attack radius increases as a Digimon Digivolves. They are a bit weaker than a standard damaging attack, but it’s good for enemies who like to move around and dodge a bunch, or when you’re outnumbered! Careful not to hurt your friends, though!

    And if you’re interested in knowing the average area of effect for an AoE attack, here’s a nifty chart!


    This is based off of a 2-post cooldown AoE that only deals damage. Naturally, increasing the diameter would raise the cooldown, while shrinking the diameter would reduce it.

    O.P.T. - Want an attack that will really make an impact? Well, Once Per Thread moves, or OPTs are the best way… once in a thread, of course. These abilities tend to be obscenely powerful, so strong that shield moves can’t even fully defend against them, unless the shield move itself is an OPT!

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    And that about covers it for some of the more common types of abilities! If you’ve thought of one that hasn’t been mentioned here, that’s great! More creativity is always good for the site! But now that we got that out of the way, why don’t we focus on how cooldowns affect damage, shall we?

Basic Attacks: Regardless of abilities, every Digimon still has a basic attack, be it by punching, headbutting, or the like. So even if all your moves are on cooldown, there’s still a way for you to fight!
0-Post Cooldown: But if you want to commit a moveslot to a particular attack, then a 0-CD move can fill that spot up nicely! In general 0-CD moves are twice as strong as a basic attack, but they tend not to do much else other than a little bit of damage.
1-Post Cooldown: Just a bit tougher, 1-CD attacks pack a bit of a wallop to them, but probably won’t be scoring any knockouts right away. They tend to mostly be single-target damage moves, very small AoE attacks, or a 1-turn buff/debuff.
2-Post Cooldown: When pure damage, 2-CD attacks are pretty strong. In addition, this is when a lot of effects start to get introduced, like a larger AoE, piercing, basic shields, a snare effect, or a 2-turn buff/debuff.
3-Post Cooldown: This is generally your Digimon’s signature finishing move! With this cooldown, chances these moves will be used once or maybe twice in a thread. Shield moves can block all attacks for 1 full turn, and snare and buff/debuff moves will probably be dealing a bit of damage now.
4-Post Cooldown: There’s no kill quite like overkill, and an attack of this magnitude proves it! Chances are, you’ll only get to use an attack like this once per battle, so it better be worth it! Is it one, superheavy nuke, or is a high-damage piercing move? A 4-CD move can do a number of things at this point, like a shield that reflects an attack!
5-Post Cooldown: And for those that want to cast meteor, this is your option. If you’ve managed to use this ability twice, the battle should probably be ending soon. Chances are, this ability deals a good deal of damage over a wide area, inflicts a debuff, and pays your taxes all at once!
6-Post Cooldown: And at this point, you’re better off making an OPT move.

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    Passive Abilities - Passive abilities take up a move slot, but they’re not moves that your Digimon uses. They’re abilities that are always active and some even have effects that trigger automatically. Passive abilities could be something as simple as increasing your speed or defense, to amplifying the power of your moves! Almost any type of move can be a passive ability, but like active abilities, if it’s too powerful, it’s going to need a cooldown.

    Passive abilities tend to be the most nebulous, so they can be hard to pin down, but here’s some guidelines for making them!

    Passives that increase your Digimon’s parameters tend to be among the most common. They’re normally limited to a 30% increase of one particular stat, though this can be raised to a 50% boost if there’s a suitable trade-off, like a 20% drop to another stat, or if there’s another noticeable drawback to it. And don’t try to min-max it, either! Sacrificing your Digimon’s ability to dress themself is certainly a hefty price to pay, but it’s not particularly relevant in a combat situation!

    When comparing the cooldown of a passive ability to an active ability, the passive ability should either be weaker, or have a higher cooldown than its active counterpart. Active abilities cost you a move slot and an action, while passive abilities only take up a moveslot.

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    Finally, I have some general tips for people when creating movesets!

    At lower levels, sticking to low cooldown moves and having fewer passive abilities will probably be more beneficial. At Rookie level, you’ll find there’s a lack of variety due to your limited number of moves. The more passives and big moves you have, the more often your Digimon will be stuck using the same basic attack or 0-cd move every round while waiting for your big move to recover from cooldown. Even at Champion level, it’s still fairly restricting, though that can be adjusted by purchasing ram upgrades from the Bit Shop, and gaining moves as a reward from For Glory threads.

    Try not to have your abilities do too many things at once in a single move. A piercing AoE attack that reduces people’s attack strength and heals you up in the process sounds nice on paper, but realistically, that’s like a 6-cd move assuming the damage, the healing, and the debuff do the bare minimum. Between alternate Digivolution lines, Mercenaries, Mode Changes, and Ram Upgrades, all purchasable from the bit shop, you’re going to have plenty of opportunities to experiment, so you don’t need to shove every kind of ability ever into one moveset, even if you don’t decide to make multiple characters.

    Don’t make a moveset that’s too passive or defensive. A fight where one person turtles up, defends themself, and heals while the other person just keeps attacking doesn’t sound so fun, and our combat system will typically favor the aggressor, anyway. Just because you can make a moveset of nothing but different shield moves doesn’t mean you should. If it’s not fun to fight against you, no one’s going to want to fight you, after all!

    Remember that you're not alone! Even if you're a Spirit-User or Solo Digimon without any mercs, we're here to have fun together! Sure, having a moveset centered around yourself is certainly a viable option, but be it in missions, plot threads, or just because you like group threads, don't feel like you can't use support-style moves that take up an action like snares, buffs, and heals just because your character's profile page only has one Digimon on it!

    And on a final note, try to make your moveset fun and interactive! Years of Research tells me that strategically, victory is most effectively obtained by restricting your opponent’s options and putting them in situations they’re not equipped to handle, but it’s not always the most fun being on the other side of the table. DFRP is about telling a fun and engaging story, not about beating someone else’s character up because you made a broken moveset.

    And on one final, FINAL note, I’d like to state that this guide was meant to take the things I’ve learned and the common abilities I’ve created and read. It is in no way meant to stifle creativity. If you’ve thought of an ability that isn’t like anything mentioned here, go ahead and do it! The graders will gladly nerf it if it’s too powerful!