Slot position ? I really really hope that’s just a coincidental myth 
Yeah. How does that work, saitama-kun?
I know there are many people who really dislike RNG, but I totally agree with the Devs original sentiment that it improves the game to have RNG on the entrance speed.
Ultimately games like this one are built on the blueprint of Magic: The Gathering. That’s a card game that’s been going since 1993 and is still doing well today (better than any other card game and in fact right now they’re the biggest they’ve ever been). They were the first game of this kind and had to learn from their own mistakes. After 10-15 years they basically figured out what was good for the game and what wasn’t. They have many published articles, a lot of the content is 100% relevant to games like Neo Monsters. Here are a couple of very relevant topics:
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When designing mechanics or cards in general (monsters) they always make counters to everything. This means there is very rarely anything broken that can come about because if any meta gets taken over by a particular powerful thing then the counter measures become popular and keep it in check.
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The above extends into nerfs/bans too… it’s much better to create counters rather than nerf the strong things.
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For a better playing experience and to improve the game on a whole what the designers need to do is “increase interactivity”. In every decision they make changing the core mechanics or in drastic monster balance changes they should ask themselves whether it increases or decreases the interactivity. This is a big philosophy the Magic Devs live by and it’s why their game has improved lots over the years. For NM the change to entrance speed being RNG and having pots increase entrance speed are two things which increase the interactivity, since way more monsters can be ahead or behind each other. Imagine a broken combo line-up with the problems starting at 80% speed. If there was no RNG then only monsters speed 81% or more could interact with it. With RNG you can have monsters from 77-78% speed dealing with it or even slower if you make them +9 and the 80% speed monster isn’t boosted. This RNG doesn’t cause much irritation because it is small and faster monsters have a better chance of going first but the implications for the game are much bigger in terms of what it enables.
If you have doubts then I suggest you go read some MTG articles. They have loads. I understand that opinions differ but to my knowledge there are certain things which ultimately make the game better and I have no doubt that the Devs know these from researching and making their own games.
A couple of the original design mistakes have come to light over the years in NM. Two great examples were the TT monsters and stun protection.
TT: This move was ridiculously powerful and even with the power creep of other monsters the TT monsters were in practically every PvP team. Chrono killer simply wasn’t an effective counter because you had a narrow window to pull it off before the TT monster got a turn and protectors could be in the way. In the end the Devs have increased that window and now suddenly the counters are easily effective enough plus there’s less need for a counter.
Stun protection: Stun absorb simply isn’t effective stun protection. It’s all we had at the beginning of the game so people ran it in abundance. However, it could never push stun out of the meta because they are still rewarded for their stun (taking one monster out of the game, two if they’ve killed through part of the team and got to the second absorber). A counter needs to actually punish something, not misdirect it, e.g. protectors are not counters to sweepers but payback revenge is. From about 1.5 years ago the Devs started making loads of stun counters and stun converters. That, combined with a large collection of viable stun immune monsters built up over the years, has got stun under control in the top bracket of PvP very nicely… finally pushing the shockers out of the meta. However, another design issue here is that these counters to stun rely on a player having multiple limited legendaries so in the lower brackets the shockers were still running riot (also top bracket they were still being overused as people gambled with them). Hence, a nerf to shocking entrance happened which has got them much better in check.
I may not be totally right about the thoughts of the designers on these two issues but what I’ve written is probably close enough. In both cases the Devs failed to have effective enough counters to these mechanics which they addressed and took the design philosophy of creating effective counters first before eventually having to make nerfs for the benefit of the game. I’m glad they did it in that order and I hope they stick rigidly to this kind of thing. Creating effective counters to strong things and increasing interactions should make the game keep getting better rather than nerfing monsters and removing RNG.
The bit I need to get better with is to not want to make pre-emptive balance changes. I called the 4o1 problem arising about a year in advance and I think I said “I told you so” to the Devs but the truth is it’s better to fix things when they become broken in the meta than to constantly fiddle with everything and irritate players. For the one or two cases when something does become broken it’s not worth the fiddling. You have to take a few risks when designing new things so you’re bound to make a few that are broken. I’m glad the Devs don’t listen to me when I’m in their ear about something like that. Taking note and keeping an eye on a potential arising issue is the best approach.
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Neo, doesn’t really deal with balance changes by introducing counters. Sometimes they do but I would say most of the time they nerf or buff monsters. Or combine both.
The RNG entrance speed is not going to make anything unbalanced if they make it that monsters with 81% speed always start before monsters with 80% speed.
I can’t see how this will make the playing experience worse…
It makes the game more strategic if it wasn’t RNG. You can actually make reliable plans on FL combos. RNG isn’t strategic.
It’s similar to the targeting RNG we experience with multiple protectors. Players hate it. The playing experience is not enhanced by it but is frustrating because of it.
I would guess that most players would prefer the entrance speed was true for all monsters.
The devs can keep the enhancement factors such as: Pots & Slot position. They add a strategic element to our FL…But I hope one day they remove the RNG…
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Monsters in slot 1 get a speed advantage over monsters in slots 2,3 & 4.
Slot 2 faster than 3 and 3 faster than 4.
I haven’t tested how significant it is. But you can test it out yourself. Put two monsters with the same speed in different slots in the FL and you will see that the majority of the time the monsters positioned in the front position goes first. RNG might make it vary sometimes…
Rational !
There are arguments for either side and certainly personal opinion comes into it. However, I will stand by my guns when I said more possible interactions is better for the game. You can imagine from a design side too if they want X to be roughly faster than Y then they need Z to be roughly faster than X and so on… you end up with a problem. With the RNG you could make, say, 8 monsters be speeds 60-63% rather than 60-67%.
I’ll have to check out this theory of which team slot you have monsters in affecting entrance speed. Does it affect monsters entering from 5th+ which slot they enter or just the front line?
Just the FL
All pillars (first form of Pupupas) have a similar problem as the first form of mythics, confirmed by Okkult’s.
This is true. I’ve been doing this for a while to make a slower monster in first slot have a chance at outspeeding the faster monster in 4th slot
I thought this was common knowledge
They all have the issue, it’s just most obvious on the max defence monsters like Pillars. They are also a case like mythics where you can fully train them while still in first form but it’s clear to see in any unevolved monster that they take less damage than their evolved form.
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Okay so I’ve tested this at length. Position in the front line makes absolutely no difference to the entrance speed for their first turn.
I thought maybe you were onto something if perhaps position 2 entered 1s after position 1 then 3 being 2s behind and 4 as 3s behind. However, this is definitely not the case. It’s all bogus.
Are there any other theories I need to debunk? I’m surprised you (or anyone else who believed in this) didn’t do some simple testing to see if it was true at some point.
Did you test perfectly same speed, potted and star monster?
You need to run more tests. Your methodology is flawed 
My tests were extensive. Have you done lots of testing of it yourself?
Way too extensive to list here. Maybe one day I will share the scientific method used.
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Slot position influence mainly TT moves bro
Nope.
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