>>38552120The problems are multiple; the monster roster is, as
>>38552179 said, a disaster. The roster is mostly comprised of shit from the MMO (DQX), and then padded out with palette swaps of those. The majority of monsters from previous games, or even Monsters games, are gone. The reason for this is due to the new "ride" mechanic Joker 3 added, where you're able to mount a monster on the overworld for travel and platforming, as well as getting Paper Mario-style first strikes. So, the need to come up with unique skeletons, animations, rider placement, etc for every monster is significantly reduced when over half of them are palette swaps of each other. The exact numbers of title representation:
>Dragon Quest: 22>DQ II: 29>DQ III: 44>DQ IV: 30>DQ V: 42>DQ VI: 25>DQ VII: 33>DQ VIII: 28>DQ IX: 21>DQ X: 163>Past DQM games (includes Monster Parade and Super Light, but not Caravan Heart): 41>Joker 3 original: 74>Heroes and Swords: 2>Total: 554Nearly a third of the roster is from the MMO.
As far as competitive goes? It's a nightmare - DQM2 had a system where, once a monster's plus value reached 100 or greater, you could replace one of its Traits with any one trait the parents had. Balancing this was the fact that each Trait had a point value, be it positive or negative, which were compared against one another during synthesis; if this resulted in a positive number, the monster would receive a penalty negative Trait (e.g. Foot Dragger) depending on the severity, as well as the monster's original Rank. This made the process require thought, and further helped you differentiate monsters than they already were.
