06-08-2015, 06:19 PM
EDIT: Sorry I haven't updated the Work in Progress part yet. Computer is crapping out bigtime. I think this is the end for my laptop. I can only use it for a little bit each day before it completely spazzes out.
I've been thinking about this a fair bit. And I think I've come up with solutions to please everyone. This is a rather extensive thread, so do make sure you have time to commit to reading it. I welcome any and all replies, but please read the whole thing rather than just seeing one thing you dislike and having a massive kneejerk reaction to it, thanks.
The Woes of the Anti-Summoner:
"Youkai have better stats than a lot of players."
"They can summon so many AND still use their other class!"
"They can install for bonus stats and I can't do jack all about it!"
"They can just sub GS and get infinite FP for their main class!"
The woes of the Summoners themselves
"They cost so much to upkeep, and it gets even worse as they level up!"
"Their AI is terrible!"
"A lot of their skills are largely just "do Will + 1/2 level damage." and they lack supportive options."
"I literally -have- to install if I want to have access to these secondary active skills!"
"They run out of FP way too fast in a long dungeon!" (Not applicable to Grand Summoners thanks to their youkai regen if unsummoned)
Global Changes to ALL Youkai:
1) New Passive: Summoning Sickness.
Youkai have really good stats, often making players look bad. And sure, Youkai kind of need good stats if they want to compare to min/maxed players who've LE'd dozens of times and have brains and good gear. But your average Joe gets ripped to shreds a little too easily. Simply nerfing youkai stats is often met with "well, that will make players who already have their youkai OP compared to newer summoners!" So that is what leads me to this proposal.
Upon being Summoned, A Youkai only has 3/4 it's usual stats, due to "Summoning Sickness" which lasts 5 rounds. This means a Youkai with 60 in a stat will only have 45. This will globally nerf all youkai to give players a fighting chance of dealing with the threat, while also giving the Youkai a chance against completely decked out players if they can survive a few rounds.
If you are concerned about the weaker youkai getting killed in PVE before their sickness wears off, see my proposed change to "The Contract."
2) Upkeep Costs, a new system: Brain Strain
Upkeeping an entire army of Youkai SHOULD be incredibly taxing, but just one or two...?
Under the new system, which I've nicknamed "Brain Strain," the more Youkai you're giving focus to, the more taxing it becomes. Add 5 to the cost of the youkai before it. Please not this means PER SUMMONED YOUKAI, not order on the list. If you only have your fifth youkai on the list out, it will cost the first youkai cost.
First Youkai: 5/turn (Total: 5)
Second Youkai: 10/turn (Total: 15)
Third Youkai: 15/turn (Total: 30)
Fourth Youkai: 20/turn (Total: 50)
Fifth Youkai: 25/turn (Total: 75)
Sixth Youkai: 30/turn (Total: 110)
Seventh Youkai: 35/turn (Total: 145)
You get the idea. Combined with Summoning Sickness, this helps balance Youkai by not murdering the FP pools of those who want fewer summons, while still hurting Mass Summoning Spam antics.
Changes to the Base Summoner Class:
1) The Contract: New Rank
Add a second rank to "The Contract" that enables the following Skills:
- Hold Position
- Hold Back
- Bombard
- As you were
Hold Position: All Youkai do absolutely nothing. They do not move. They will not attack if in range. This is good for levelling weak suicidal youkai, holding one back as you Buff/ Energy Transfer/ Heal it, or to place guards around a wounded ally who needs protection.
Hold Back: Standard Youkai fare, with the exception of not using skills. This allows the summoner to make them preserve FP in long dungeon crawls.
Bombard: All Youkai will ONLY use their skills, and will constantly move away to it's maximum range. The purpose is to allow them to avoid self-suicide on Electrojammers/Duelists/etc.Also to avoid running into deathtraps by a set-up class.
As you were: All Youkai return to default behavior.
Unfriendly youkai without affinity skills have a chance to ignore your orders. This is applied on an individual basis.
2) Sync Mind: New Rank
Rank 3 of Sync Mind would allow the Summoner to use their Youkai's secondary active skill without it being installed, but at a price: Double the FP cost. No effect if the Youkai's third ability is a passive.
3) Install: Massive Change
As it stands now, install is... a little too good. As such, I propose the following changes:
- Install no longer replaces base stats + Buffs. It now TRADES ALL STATS. This is more ideal for weaker players, but still allows tactical play for decked out characters.
- Player gains numerous qualities based on the installed creature. Chun install makes normal attacks deal fire damage and enables Nerhaven Elemental Impacts, for instance.
- Player recieves an FP cost reduction to the installed Youkai's abilities.
- Player has a chance (Lowered by Youkai Affinity skills) to be overwhelmed by the Youkai, taking no action for the turn.
EDIT: Also, for consideration: Instead of a fixed duration for install, how about adding an upkeep cost to be able to turn it on and off? This would let you just keep it on if you're willing to pay the cost, but also not just be "free stats."
4) Cracked Mirror: Function Change
A lot of people think summoner is cheap to sub since it gives free MP. So, as suggested by Soapy in another thread, let's reduce the FP regen and instead apply this directly to upkeep reduction!
Cracked Mirror now reduces FP upkeep cost by 1/rank (At rank 5, it effectively makes each youkai count as the one before it, in terms of cost.)
EDIT: This sounds powerful. I mean, it makes your first youkai literally free. But consider that you lose your FP regen. Also consider the scaling costs I suggested for having many youkai out, and suddenly taking 5 FP off each youkai doesn't sound too OP when you're still paying 20+ per turn for just a few Youkai WITHOUT FP REGEN. Basically, it -forces- the Cracked Mirror's effect to be applied to your Youkai instead of your Subclass.
5) Affinity Skills
- Remove the growth bonus and apply it innately. Low level summoners can't even summon if they don't want their Youkai to suck long term.
- Add a loyalty effect that negates chances of youkai being disobedient at 5% per rank and negates install dangers at 20% per rank.
6) Spirit Regeneration
- Move Spirit Regeneration from GS to Summoner; Bonder desperately needs this as well.
- If Deemed too strong for the early game, make the prerequisites R5 Cracked Mirror and R3 Sync Mind
7) Evoke Mastery
- Once again, Bonder desperately needs this.
- If deemed too strong for the early game, make the prerequisites R5 Cracked Mirror and R3 Sync Mind
Grand Summoner Changes:
1) Astral Aegis: Toggle and Cost
Astral Aegis is pretty intense. So, I propose making it a toggle skill, with an upkeep cost of it's own. The cost would be pretty small, but just a little something extra.
1 Youkai: 1/turn total
2 Youkai: 3/turn total
3 Youkai: 5/turn total
4 Youkai: 7/turn total
Etc. Just add 2 per youkai. Just a little something extra to counterbalance the absurd bonuses you get from a lot of Youkai.
2) Summon Storm: The revengeance of the return of the apocalypse
Inspired by something Catabur proposed in another thread:
50 FP, Rank B invocation (Yes, 150 FP total, and 4 turns to cast.)
Summons all available youkai. During their Summoning Sickness, they do not have FP upkeep costs. As soon as their summoning sickness wears off, the FP costs come back into play for any Youkai you have not dismissed. Incredibly powerful burst, yes, but good luck casting it in PVP without some serious teamwork. Useful for levelling large groups of Youkai in PVE, though.
3) Absorb Ether: Function Change
Once again, credit to Soapy for proposing the base idea for this.
1 FP regen/ 1 FP cost reduction to youkai per rank. Effect is halved, rounding down, if Summoner is not your main class.
Bonder Changes
1) Eternal Bond: Extramarital Affairs
Eternal Bond limits the Bonder to 3 youkai in the same way low Faith limits a freshly LE'd character down to 5. They can have more Youkai past the 3rd, but can only USE the three. This will help to allow a little bit of freedom in setups (Example: Swapping out a bonded youkai for a non-bonded youkai if you really need the benefits of only a single bonded youkai) while still limiting the Bonder to being... well... the Bonder.
Changes to individual Youkai (WORK IN PROGRESS)
Too many Youkai are too similar, anmd/or have skills scaling off their worst stats. Here's a few suggestions to diversify them.
Fairy:
Izabe: Working on a new Skill to replace Fairy Lance. Possibly a proposal to change Radiant Roa.
Asrai: Working on a new Passive or skill to replace Aquae Cristae.
Wawa: Working on a concept for a new active skill that suits her description.
Dragon
Chun: Fine as is/ working on an alternate AOE for consideration
Haku: Working on a concept for a new active skill (to differentiate it from the Miu spell)
Hatsu: Working on a concept for a new active skill (to better represent the acid)
Seiiryu: Working on a concept for a new passive.
Beast
Byakko: Fine as is
Kilkenny: Fine as is
Firefox: Working on concepts; all kinds.
Avian
Snow Crow: working on a Skl based attack that leaves ice tiles (working on Details)
Apus: Apodis is fine on it's own, but scales on it's worst stat. Working on alternatives
Hippogriph: Fine as is
Mystic:
Sazae=Oni: Fine as is
Carbuncle: Probably fine but I'm looking at alternatives to 777.
Terrasque: Working on it.
Night:
Yukionna: Probably fine? I'm looking into it.
Drowned Woman: Fine as is.
Lilu: Considering alternatives to Embrace's current function.
Plant:
Orbello: Fine as is
Jack 'o Lantern: Fine as is
Vampiric Legume: Fine as is
I've been thinking about this a fair bit. And I think I've come up with solutions to please everyone. This is a rather extensive thread, so do make sure you have time to commit to reading it. I welcome any and all replies, but please read the whole thing rather than just seeing one thing you dislike and having a massive kneejerk reaction to it, thanks.
The Woes of the Anti-Summoner:
"Youkai have better stats than a lot of players."
"They can summon so many AND still use their other class!"
"They can install for bonus stats and I can't do jack all about it!"
"They can just sub GS and get infinite FP for their main class!"
The woes of the Summoners themselves
"They cost so much to upkeep, and it gets even worse as they level up!"
"Their AI is terrible!"
"A lot of their skills are largely just "do Will + 1/2 level damage." and they lack supportive options."
"I literally -have- to install if I want to have access to these secondary active skills!"
"They run out of FP way too fast in a long dungeon!" (Not applicable to Grand Summoners thanks to their youkai regen if unsummoned)
Global Changes to ALL Youkai:
1) New Passive: Summoning Sickness.
Youkai have really good stats, often making players look bad. And sure, Youkai kind of need good stats if they want to compare to min/maxed players who've LE'd dozens of times and have brains and good gear. But your average Joe gets ripped to shreds a little too easily. Simply nerfing youkai stats is often met with "well, that will make players who already have their youkai OP compared to newer summoners!" So that is what leads me to this proposal.
Upon being Summoned, A Youkai only has 3/4 it's usual stats, due to "Summoning Sickness" which lasts 5 rounds. This means a Youkai with 60 in a stat will only have 45. This will globally nerf all youkai to give players a fighting chance of dealing with the threat, while also giving the Youkai a chance against completely decked out players if they can survive a few rounds.
If you are concerned about the weaker youkai getting killed in PVE before their sickness wears off, see my proposed change to "The Contract."
2) Upkeep Costs, a new system: Brain Strain
Upkeeping an entire army of Youkai SHOULD be incredibly taxing, but just one or two...?
Under the new system, which I've nicknamed "Brain Strain," the more Youkai you're giving focus to, the more taxing it becomes. Add 5 to the cost of the youkai before it. Please not this means PER SUMMONED YOUKAI, not order on the list. If you only have your fifth youkai on the list out, it will cost the first youkai cost.
First Youkai: 5/turn (Total: 5)
Second Youkai: 10/turn (Total: 15)
Third Youkai: 15/turn (Total: 30)
Fourth Youkai: 20/turn (Total: 50)
Fifth Youkai: 25/turn (Total: 75)
Sixth Youkai: 30/turn (Total: 110)
Seventh Youkai: 35/turn (Total: 145)
You get the idea. Combined with Summoning Sickness, this helps balance Youkai by not murdering the FP pools of those who want fewer summons, while still hurting Mass Summoning Spam antics.
Changes to the Base Summoner Class:
1) The Contract: New Rank
Add a second rank to "The Contract" that enables the following Skills:
- Hold Position
- Hold Back
- Bombard
- As you were
Hold Position: All Youkai do absolutely nothing. They do not move. They will not attack if in range. This is good for levelling weak suicidal youkai, holding one back as you Buff/ Energy Transfer/ Heal it, or to place guards around a wounded ally who needs protection.
Hold Back: Standard Youkai fare, with the exception of not using skills. This allows the summoner to make them preserve FP in long dungeon crawls.
Bombard: All Youkai will ONLY use their skills, and will constantly move away to it's maximum range. The purpose is to allow them to avoid self-suicide on Electrojammers/Duelists/etc.Also to avoid running into deathtraps by a set-up class.
As you were: All Youkai return to default behavior.
Unfriendly youkai without affinity skills have a chance to ignore your orders. This is applied on an individual basis.
2) Sync Mind: New Rank
Rank 3 of Sync Mind would allow the Summoner to use their Youkai's secondary active skill without it being installed, but at a price: Double the FP cost. No effect if the Youkai's third ability is a passive.
3) Install: Massive Change
As it stands now, install is... a little too good. As such, I propose the following changes:
- Install no longer replaces base stats + Buffs. It now TRADES ALL STATS. This is more ideal for weaker players, but still allows tactical play for decked out characters.
- Player gains numerous qualities based on the installed creature. Chun install makes normal attacks deal fire damage and enables Nerhaven Elemental Impacts, for instance.
- Player recieves an FP cost reduction to the installed Youkai's abilities.
- Player has a chance (Lowered by Youkai Affinity skills) to be overwhelmed by the Youkai, taking no action for the turn.
EDIT: Also, for consideration: Instead of a fixed duration for install, how about adding an upkeep cost to be able to turn it on and off? This would let you just keep it on if you're willing to pay the cost, but also not just be "free stats."
4) Cracked Mirror: Function Change
A lot of people think summoner is cheap to sub since it gives free MP. So, as suggested by Soapy in another thread, let's reduce the FP regen and instead apply this directly to upkeep reduction!
Cracked Mirror now reduces FP upkeep cost by 1/rank (At rank 5, it effectively makes each youkai count as the one before it, in terms of cost.)
EDIT: This sounds powerful. I mean, it makes your first youkai literally free. But consider that you lose your FP regen. Also consider the scaling costs I suggested for having many youkai out, and suddenly taking 5 FP off each youkai doesn't sound too OP when you're still paying 20+ per turn for just a few Youkai WITHOUT FP REGEN. Basically, it -forces- the Cracked Mirror's effect to be applied to your Youkai instead of your Subclass.
5) Affinity Skills
- Remove the growth bonus and apply it innately. Low level summoners can't even summon if they don't want their Youkai to suck long term.
- Add a loyalty effect that negates chances of youkai being disobedient at 5% per rank and negates install dangers at 20% per rank.
6) Spirit Regeneration
- Move Spirit Regeneration from GS to Summoner; Bonder desperately needs this as well.
- If Deemed too strong for the early game, make the prerequisites R5 Cracked Mirror and R3 Sync Mind
7) Evoke Mastery
- Once again, Bonder desperately needs this.
- If deemed too strong for the early game, make the prerequisites R5 Cracked Mirror and R3 Sync Mind
Grand Summoner Changes:
1) Astral Aegis: Toggle and Cost
Astral Aegis is pretty intense. So, I propose making it a toggle skill, with an upkeep cost of it's own. The cost would be pretty small, but just a little something extra.
1 Youkai: 1/turn total
2 Youkai: 3/turn total
3 Youkai: 5/turn total
4 Youkai: 7/turn total
Etc. Just add 2 per youkai. Just a little something extra to counterbalance the absurd bonuses you get from a lot of Youkai.
2) Summon Storm: The revengeance of the return of the apocalypse
Inspired by something Catabur proposed in another thread:
50 FP, Rank B invocation (Yes, 150 FP total, and 4 turns to cast.)
Summons all available youkai. During their Summoning Sickness, they do not have FP upkeep costs. As soon as their summoning sickness wears off, the FP costs come back into play for any Youkai you have not dismissed. Incredibly powerful burst, yes, but good luck casting it in PVP without some serious teamwork. Useful for levelling large groups of Youkai in PVE, though.
3) Absorb Ether: Function Change
Once again, credit to Soapy for proposing the base idea for this.
1 FP regen/ 1 FP cost reduction to youkai per rank. Effect is halved, rounding down, if Summoner is not your main class.
Bonder Changes
1) Eternal Bond: Extramarital Affairs
Eternal Bond limits the Bonder to 3 youkai in the same way low Faith limits a freshly LE'd character down to 5. They can have more Youkai past the 3rd, but can only USE the three. This will help to allow a little bit of freedom in setups (Example: Swapping out a bonded youkai for a non-bonded youkai if you really need the benefits of only a single bonded youkai) while still limiting the Bonder to being... well... the Bonder.
Changes to individual Youkai (WORK IN PROGRESS)
Too many Youkai are too similar, anmd/or have skills scaling off their worst stats. Here's a few suggestions to diversify them.
Fairy:
Izabe: Working on a new Skill to replace Fairy Lance. Possibly a proposal to change Radiant Roa.
Asrai: Working on a new Passive or skill to replace Aquae Cristae.
Wawa: Working on a concept for a new active skill that suits her description.
Dragon
Chun: Fine as is/ working on an alternate AOE for consideration
Haku: Working on a concept for a new active skill (to differentiate it from the Miu spell)
Hatsu: Working on a concept for a new active skill (to better represent the acid)
Seiiryu: Working on a concept for a new passive.
Beast
Byakko: Fine as is
Kilkenny: Fine as is
Firefox: Working on concepts; all kinds.
Avian
Snow Crow: working on a Skl based attack that leaves ice tiles (working on Details)
Apus: Apodis is fine on it's own, but scales on it's worst stat. Working on alternatives
Hippogriph: Fine as is
Mystic:
Sazae=Oni: Fine as is
Carbuncle: Probably fine but I'm looking at alternatives to 777.
Terrasque: Working on it.
Night:
Yukionna: Probably fine? I'm looking into it.
Drowned Woman: Fine as is.
Lilu: Considering alternatives to Embrace's current function.
Plant:
Orbello: Fine as is
Jack 'o Lantern: Fine as is
Vampiric Legume: Fine as is