[Clair Obscur: Expedition 33] Monoco nevron foot collection while in the reserve party (2025)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 / e33 / COE33

This post contains character mechanic spoilers for midway through the game's story.

He can do this in any battle, but only after collecting their feet after a win. Most nevrons can have their feet collected, indicated by the diamond icon top left of their health bar, pictured below.

This mechanic is really cool but the kicker is that Monoco must be in the active party when the enemy is defeated.

In this game you have up to five party members with you at once, but only 3 can be in the active party at once. The others are kept in the reserve party. If the active party is wiped out in combat, instead of a Game Over you get an option to call in the reserve party to replace the active party and try to complete the fight.

If Monoco was in reserve but the active party was wiped, then the reserve party finishes the enemy, Monoco WILL collect the foot. If Monoco was in the active party which wiped, then he will NOT collect the foot, even if he dealt most of the damage for the fight and automatically revives afterwards with 1 HP...

I can understand the decision to restrict foot collection in this way. The devs likely wanted to incentivise playing with Monoco in your party even before you find strong skills for him. Collecting nevron feet is the only way Monoco unlocks skills to become useful in combat. This restriction guarantees one spot in the active party will be Monoco for the majority of the game for many players, else they miss out on skill unlocks, and you know what FOMO is like.

The peculiar thing is that in many other respects, the game doesn't have you feeling bad for using certain characters in your active party over others. Yes, only the active party at victory gets EXP and progresses mastery in the Pictos system, but in all other regards you forget who your active team even is outside of combat. When you pick up items, any one of your five characters will make a comment on it, not just the active party. In cutscenes, all five members are present with equal prominence. Dialogue about the environment: same thing. Heck, you can even instantly swap between character models for non-combat movement with the click of a button.

In allowing Monoco to collect nevron feet in any party arrangement after unlocking the character, you would give back the freedom and fun of party composition.

So are there any moments that might need to be exceptions to this change? Yes. Any point in the game before Monoco is unlocked as a playable character, for which there should already be at least one flag in place. Also, a certain story section for a very short time:

During this short section, Monoco would not collect feet of nevrons slain by the opposite side. However, the same nevrons are present on both sides and even if he were to collect feet telepathically, it's such a small deal that I doubt anyone would care.

Other than that section, from the point you get Monoco onwards, he will never become inaccessible so he should always be able to collect feet regardless of party arrangement.

I have no idea how difficult it is to override the default behaviour.

Here are two implementations I can see with their own benefits:

1. Player can only collect feet after unlocking Monoco through the story, but Monoco can collect them regardless of party arrangement. Incentivises you to go and find earlygame nevrons for their feet, just like in vanilla.

2. Player can collect feet from the start of the game, only showing the foot collection icon and loot popup notification if Monoco is unlocked. This one means less backtracking to weak nevrons, but could be nice for fast-tracking subsequent playthroughs.

Either way, this mod would be very nice for party flexibility throughout the majority of the game. Even some bosses yield feet so it can be quite restrictive for fights that are actually worth strategising for.