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Make Summoners great again. (Discussion)
#1
After some extensive time dealing with youkai, it's starting to come to my attention of a few very unhealthy constants among youkai, and not just about their stats either, though that plays a part, it's not the biggest part that's wrong. Almost every youkai excluding Firefox, Vampiric Legume, and Phase Python essentially functions the exact same way. It's summoned, it moves 5-6 tiles, and uses an ability, most youkai don't have to stats to actually utilize their basic attacks properly and those that do don't have the guile to utilize the crit damage on the off chance that they do, and even then most don't have the luck to crit with in the first place.

So my proposal is that we work together as a playerbase to try and give Summoner in general a rework to help it feel more worthwhile to actually use AND fight against. Literally most summoners I see, myself included when fighting against normal monsters tend to summon their youkai which are around their level, and let them sit back while the summoner themself uses some sort of offensive ability from their sub class to take down the monsters. I don't know about you but this feels VERY backwards, it's because of how they feel to use. They all feel like just mindless minions with no soul or personality or even a playstyle to use.

My suggestion is firstly, to bring back from SL how each youkai had a 'set' of abilities and passives, instead of just one offensive skill and two passives per, getting rid of this uniformity will help them stand out more already. Another reason is anyone whom can inflict silence will literally stop 90% of youkai from even being effective on the feild because they cannot use their basic attacks to hit almost anyone. On top of this, some of them I believe would feel better to use if they had ranged basic attacks. This could open the way for ideas for more youkai to be made and give different strategies for both promotion classes, maybe even ranged basic attacks that deal magic damage instead of physical on certain ones with a passive effect that states this. And before you ask about this, it'd obviously need to be tweaked so if that youkai is installed it's not completely bonkers, granting swords +3 range or something. All at once and additional square of range to the main hand weapon sounds like a not so bad idea.

Another thing is if we're doing this overhaul, it'd be a good idea to for certain youkai's maintenance costs, up the maximum cost on them, maybe lower others, depending on their utility. Making these changes will balence out how players utilize specific youkai and actually bring another layer of strategy that was present in SL. "Do I want to bring out 3 weaker youkai and let them overpower my foes or do I want to bring out a stronger one and maybe one weaker youkai to keep from losing too much focus at once?" Another benefit of changing the focus costs is because with how the Great Reckoning changed everything, Focus Point totals are higher than ever before, meaning the old system for summoners isn't as effective at keeping them from storming the field with creatures. Though even then each creature feels less than effective because of how straightforward they all are.

Another point here is that with the current system of youkai, playing Bonder feels very, -very- underwhelming. Your bonded youkai don't actually feel like a partner like they should, they feel more like a minion you can call to your side to distract the enemy with some damage while you do all the real work, before they happen to get taken down in a couple hits by the enemy. Looking at the stats of a lot of the youkai, even with Fight as one and Synchro Summon, their stats aren't very pleasant to see and attempt to use for their basic attacking ability against enemies, or to avoid being crit, or even to crit an enemy.

With the changes I have in mind for youkai becoming a bit more unique, certain skills in Summoner, Grand Summoner and Bonder will need to be altered to accomodate certain changes. my main concern is Summon Storm, I'm thinking instead of making it 6 -random- youkai, it'd give a little more preparationary strategy if the ability used your first 6 youkai in your contract list that can be summoned. The other skills with Grand Summoner until further notice seem like they'd work out with these changes. For Summoner as a base class I was considering changes to the affinity system as just giving them +5 stats seems bland and more like a "You need this" rather than a "This is an option" like other classes present.

Devourer of Souls, i'm very sure you've mentioned yourself something along the lines of disliking having classes with skills that feel like 'you should always take this no matter what'. One idea i'm tossing around in my mind is each youkai class having something unique to that class the no other class does, that the affinity skills boosts, like say night youkai all have a specific passive where something about them gets better at night, and then putting points into the affnity for night youkai increases how effective that night based passive is, while beast youkai might just overall be good with basic attacking and dodging attacks so beast affinity would make them better at doing just that than they already are. I say this also because one of your responses to a balance fu thread involving youkai was that 'they already have a lot of stat buffs they can have so increasing their stats is going to break them'. Not exactly word for word but it came off similar to that. So thats when I got to thinking on brainstorming ideas on how to overhaul them in general so they can feel actually worthwhile both to fight and to use. Another unhealthy thing I noticed is how install ever since the great reckoning has felt so lackluster, I can hardly notice an increase in my stats, and in a few places stats even go -down-.

This also does not feel quite right to use and most of the time most people opt out of it except for the bonus passives like immunity to fire, ice or resisting physical attacks. As for install, changing some of the racial bases on the youkai is probably going to fix this anyway. Sync Mind has been a go to and beloved ability that summoners have, and with the recent reductions to focus costs on youkai abilities, it's been made a little -TOO- good. For example I can literally use 'Fairy Lance' to hit targets across immense spaces for over a hundred light magic damage for only 9 focus each cast, when I regenerate 13 without pacifist boon OR cracked mirror, meaning if I use this twice a round i'm only expending 18 focus and recovering 13 of that back. The costs shoulden't be this low unless maybe the skill is something like Phase Fang which is a modified basic attack, and even then that feels a tad too low for being able to poison the enemy with a class that encourages pumping up Willpower to be able to maintain your summons for a long enough time you can take down your enemies.

Next up looking at Bonders skills. Riagri as i'm typing this is currently still broken with no scaling for it, I was thinking maybe letting it scale with either faith or the Bonders elemental attack for whatever element is being used. Everything else in Bonder seems fine for now. Now that the classes themselves are covered, the hard part comes, the actual reworking of the youkai themselves. This is where I'm asking for the cooperation of the playerbase to come together and brainstorm ideas for each and every youkai and even the GMs and Dev themselves to consider these ideas and possibly make suggestions on it and give feedback. I would greatly appreciate it if you all would remain civil and refrain from dismissing anything without at least an explaination why.
OOC Devourer Of Souls: it makes me feel like someone slipped me acid laced water
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#2
Edit now that the wall has been resolved.



I agree with you mostly, youkai are in a bad spot.

as far as youkai stats go, they aren't players, they shouldn't be constrained to player stat allotments. They need enough Vit to take one or two hits unless tanking is their gimmick, enough skill to hit their basic attacks, enough of whatever their abilities scale on for it to be meaningful, and enough cel to actually traverse the battlefield. If criticals are their gimmick they need to be able to crit.

Honestly youkai stats just need a little fine tunement, Or just the players distribute youkai stats themselves, youkai are more like monsters than players, and should probably get 5 stats per level. (they don't get class bonuses to stats, they don't get traits, they don't have equipment, they don't have weapons.)
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#3
"Lolzytripd" Wrote:Honestly youkai stats just need a little fine tunement, Or just the players distribute youkai stats themselves, youkai are more like monsters than players, and should probably get 5 stats per level. (they don't get class bonuses to stats, they don't get traits, they don't have equipment, they don't have weapons.)

Personally, that 'players put the points in themselves' deal sounds a little iffy to me since keeping track of so many youkai and putting their points in individually sounds hassling but, all at once it COULD prove to be helpful to remedying the situation. The more I think on it, the more I like the idea. Still open to other suggestions.
OOC Devourer Of Souls: it makes me feel like someone slipped me acid laced water
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#4
Make Youkai use the summoner's aptitude then. Problem solved.
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#5
One problem sure, the rest still stand.
OOC Devourer Of Souls: it makes me feel like someone slipped me acid laced water
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#6
"Snake" Wrote:Make Youkai use the summoner's aptitude then. Problem solved.

I'd rather not force Aptitude on Summoners. Especially in the case of Corrupted Summoners who generally don't want the Sanctity that Aptitude would force on them. They already have Faith as a "tax" as is.

Honestly, Summoners do face numerous problems that prevent them from reaching their full potential outside of their Youkai stats. If anything, the Youkai are just one "extra skill" per turn for an upkeep cost of 17 FP per.



Personally, the issues are... (Spoiler tagged because the post is incomplete but I need to turn the comp off)

- Multiple reasons to remain disengaged, including:
- Friendship dropping if the Youkai is defeated; why risk it?
- PVE enemies largely ignoring Youkai to bumrush the summoner anyways, unless a Rogue, so youkai literally cannot physically tank for you.
- Their normal attacks being as bad as they are
- Their attacks having the range to them that they do; zero reason to get into melee range
- Halved healing from Malmelo so supporting them is a bitch unless they're all close by. (Less of an issue for Bonders)

Issues for the Summoner Themselves:
- Bonder gets fewer youkai, but can't revive them? Seems ass backards, no?

Feeling sick, need to rest for a bit. I'll finish this post later.
*loud burp*
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#7
In my personal opinion, i'm starting to agree more and more with the idea of summoners putting points in for their youkai. It sounds like it'd fix numerous problems at once. Youkai good for tanking can fulfill that role accurately, but the biggest issue I could see is people getting salty over Drowned Woman's passive, and the fact she's water so she scales off high vitality meaning someone could make an extra tanky drowned woman with high hp and resists physical damage types. This could become very bothersome on top of having other similarly specced youkai on field at once. Not to mention Vampiric Legume.
OOC Devourer Of Souls: it makes me feel like someone slipped me acid laced water
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#8
Sounds like it'd be broken as hell, so probably won't happen.
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#9
"Neus" Wrote:Sounds like it'd be broken as hell, so probably won't happen.

When you say this did you mean the entire thread of the changes? Or just the idea of putting points in for the youkai themselves?
OOC Devourer Of Souls: it makes me feel like someone slipped me acid laced water
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#10
Only the idea of point distribution for Youkai.
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