[Autumn]

This hard-derailed into a Balance Fu when it was just a QOL suggestion to skip a step on something that you can already do in-game. It doesn't make a difference to get Youkai faster, balance-wise.

You can already get most of the Youkai in the game without the QOL I was suggesting, so I'm not sure what "worsens" for being able to just do that faster, since it's not stopping people from doing it regardless. I like having a bunch of Youkai because I like switching them around for fun, because not all of them are useful to put it lightly. Some of them have the hard counter, not all, and you can just pack those particular Youkai without going over 10 or 12 contracts anyway.
 
It doesn't really change anything balance-wise to be able to get Youkai faster. The problem is with Sync Mind skills, not with the Youkai amount, because the amount of hard counter Youkai that are worth the contract slots doesn't go past 12.

Limiting the amount of Youkai slots affects the people that want to screw around with unoptimal Youkai more than it does the ones that want to hard counter people. With less than 12 contracts, you can get:

Suzaku (Hard counters Evade)
Sazae Oni (Hard counters Water and Evade)
Drowned Woman (counters physical)
Chun (counters fire)
Hatsu (counters acid)
Haku OR Yukionna (counters ice)

That's 6 Youkai and you don't really need other ones if you just want to hard counter people. Everything else is extra. There's more good Youkai than those 6, but keep in mind that not all of them are necessarily worth the slot.

Sounds to me like this thread should be moved then, you are suggesting bringing in an unintended mechanic that was a relic leftover from the shift of pre-GR to GR1, one that has been abused by players who knew of it's existence quite a few times, I am not exempt from having used this technique before for my own Grand Summoner at the time. One mechanic that I am agreeing to make more accessible, but also suggesting that perhaps having access to every youkai in the book is a little ridiculous too, don't you think? It is almost akin to having over 100 skill points spent in something like VA, where you have access to a plethora of options at any given scenario, with skill slots limiting how much skill pool you can actively equip at once.

Aside from only a couple incorrect summaries of the youkai you have listed, I have never taken into account their immunities in this thread either, as they still remain contentious to current youkai balance and I acknowledge they will change in the most likely future, instead I believe that the number of youkai accessible to any given player should be regulated, there should be a cap on how many total youkai you can have in your possession, and as Trex brought up, being able to contract a youkai, level it up, and be able to dismiss it and re-visit the statue later to re-obtain the very same youkai seems like a good idea. You can equate this action to being a storage box for youkai.

Unintended behaviors should first be put under inspection, then evaluated, and then be decided upon whether they should be removed, or become more accessible to everyone else. In this scenario, I believe that making them more accessible to everyone is not exactly a reversible change, especially given now you actually cannot obtain every youkai in the game, with only 20-21 max slots being available on Korvara, 24-25 available on Sigrogana, and 28 total youkai being available. This moves the suggestion beyond a quality of life since no, you cannot actually already do this in game, and in my suggestion, 20 max youkai slots future proofs the concept and prevents us from having to re-visit the subject later due to a haphazard QoL change, since 20 youkai slots in game is more currently available than unlimited youkai slots.