[MegaBlues]

I think there's a lot of hyperbole going on in this thread, so let me put in my two cents.

-Youkai, by themselves, aren't very good. Most have moderate to low survivability, and they're pretty dumb. They can deal respectable damage, but without proper setup, they'll get blown away before they get a chance to act.

-Youkai, in a pack, are extremely strong, especially since map-wide damage isn't what it used to be. Summon Storm zerg rushing was why the cost of youkai upkeep was increased.

-Installing and Sync Mind are extremely powerful. It isn't an exaggeration to say that Grand Summoner, and Bonder to a lesser extent, can function well with every single other class in the game.

Bonder's strength is in how it can make great use of the limited Youkai at its disposal, and Grand Summoner's strength is supposed to be in its variety. However, making your own party out of thin air is a delicate balancing act, and SL2's nature means that balance can rapidly shift in ways that are hard to predict. But Summoners aren't the worst, nor the best, thing in the game, and I think that reducing the hyperbole and increasing the intellectual honesty would benefit the discussion.

Now, for ideas, both fresh and old.

-Cap the amount of summonable Youkai to 3, while reducing the FP scaling to one FP per 6 levels. So 1 FP for levels 1 - 6, and 10 FP for levels 55 - 60. Summon Storm could remove this cap and nullify the upkeep cost of the Youkai for turns based on rank, and automatically unsummon the affected Youkai after the effect ended.

-Make Youkai equal to the level of their summoner. Grinding Youkai is not fun. Grinding is never fun. This will also ensure that Youkai are always at a level usable by their player. As part of this, Youkai can be given the same stat generation procedure as mobs have, which would make balancing easier once more, and would make it possible for Youkai to be more diverse.

-Remove friendship, or use it for another purpose. Maybe for a new skill, or recruiting method. *coughyoukaifusioncough*

-Make Grand Summoner's FP Regen skill into a passive that either reduces upkeep, or allows for the free maintenance of a few Youkai. 15 free FP per turn that may or may not be used for actual summoning is too much.

[Ignored Knowledge]

Most players can clear monsters over their own level like nothing. Even over level 60 while some are eager to go into crazy-themed dungeons.

Youkai alone are a weaker version of what the world its self has to offer, with the exception of being boosted (From things like tactician) and if you grind them repeatedly until they gain over the top stats if you're lucky. But who would want to grind and remake a lot of youkai from level 1 to 60 when you can just do it to -yourself- without youkai? Like Blues said, it's not fun. So to be blunt, I suggest making them take any extra experience into future level(s) like with player characters.

As for how strong they are -instead of trying to guess of numerical level of powers of when it's right or wrong for youkai to just horde and defeat whatever, I have a better idea.

How about at a certain level of friendship, the summoner can control the youkai on said youkai's turn if they want to? On screen and system-wise they technically are them and playing the turn until its over. I believe that will make up for youkai being stupid without having some fancy headache of an AI code. It would also make the friendship feature more diverse.

[Ignored Knowledge]

I just gathered some new information about summoners and youkai. And I think I found the real problem

It turns out the Focus Point cost for each of them is 5 + 1 per 5 levels of the youkai. Or so I heard.. (It doesn't say it anywhere in the game its self to my knowledge.) So like Soapy said.

Soapy » Wed Oct 07, 2015 5:20 am[/url]"]Summoning multiple Youkai is bad because three or more will drop your FP faster than a statue in free fall (yes, even with 17+ regen per round), especially once people realize they can just walk in circles until you lose.

Let me put this in perspective a bit. You want youkai. You want youkai that'll last in the harsh world. Therefore you want your youkai to have high stats which includes high levels in order for them to not get mowed down instantly by other players of which could easily kill a level 80 world version of the same monster and etc etc (See my other post); naturally the youkai will be around level 60. Each Youkai costs 17 FP per round alone with this.
If someone dusts off the dirt from Summon Storm and decides to use it, they'll be using 45 FP to summon just six youkai that'll drain 102 FP a round to a total of over 147 FP lost. Naturally next turn or so they'll run after the target. Another 102 FP. Then maybe they'll reach the target, or not since they're all spread out by the spell. The other player could always just run from them if it's PVP. Bottom line is: Another 102 FP cost. Then next round maybe they're close enough to hit with something or at least a little bit from them all. Hence another 102 FP. Think you have enough FP to continue? (Most won't) Think you'll want to continue? How would you even do this in the time and round consuming PvE world? Why would anyone do any of this if they can just grab their skills, level the youkai to buff the skills, and use them all for themselves, if not better if they have better stats, without a FP destroyer cost from deploying the actual youkai?

It's like youkai with the support of Grand Summoner was made for something with over 1000 FP and +30 FP regain. Was something over looked?

I don't think it's a matter of no one wants to be a youkai field summoner fanatic because they don't want to. But because they can't and the installing is better than instantly dropping their FP to 0.

You built upon something that just can't happen, Neus. :|

[Ranylyn]

^ The big problem is it was changed from a flat 5 per turn to 5+1/5 levels simply because people were complaining about their sustainability. It wasn't originally built that way, but rather, it was the bare minimum required to get people to stop complaining. Granted, 5 per turn let you Summon Storm with impunity due to the FP regen the class offers, so I completely understand why a nerf was needed. But the FP cost scaling being taken to that extreme absolutely murdered Youkai viability. (Which is exactly why I suggested the cost scaling change to be multiplicative per youkai, rather than flat, to make lower numbers actually useable in normal scenarios while keeping SS to a desperate gambit)

[Ignored Knowledge]

Around 5 or more Focus Points per youkai seems a bit fitting. Seeing that the common FP is around 300s to 400s at level 60. Common FP regain is 15-17 and six youkai could drain about around +30. And etc. But I could see great sustainability with liches. But you know, they're liches; 50% more FP. They're going to have more of an edge with FP than anything else possible. If we manage to lower the cost to where the sustainability is still somewhat challenging for liches, it could still be crippling for every other races. If we made it low enough to where it's still challenging to for everything else -it could still be highly stable with liches and in return there might be complaints of the sustainability or someone might think "Why is it only good with liches". (Note: it's crippling for everything currently. And then some.) So we might need the magic numbers of possible costs. Maybe even go outside the box and throw the cost per round away and have it be only the cost on summon to be leveled and measured with the youkai's levels.

.....Or we could just say screw it and just go back to a solid 5 FP a pop. Most of them will probably be defeated fast on summon at times or ran away from. No use to put a lot of effort in a possible dud.

[Rendar]

Why not just go with % drainage?

Like. 1 youkai is 2% of your maximum FP? That way, you can keep 1 out for about 50 rounds.. or even infinitely because of the mana regen.

It solves the problem of low level youkai users getting fukt by never having FP to use shit. If you have.. say. 350 FP. Or hell, 400 FP.

One youkai costs 8 FP, which may be to LOW, considering.. so maybe even 3% if they're higher level. (1-20 is 1%, 21-40 is 2%, 41-60 is 3%). 8 FP for one youkai, if you have six out from a summon storm thats.. 93 initial cost, with an upkeep of 48(72 maybe) per turn. While this is a good system for making it 'balance' and not be so nut-crushing for higher people, it's actually OP for the lower FP summoners... which isn't supposed to be the case with the 15 FP regen they get.

So, to counter that, the FP regen from Summoner needs to act as a way to refund mana ONLY if you have something summoned. What this means is that with normal summoner regen, you'll get the regen count to making one youkai that is summoned cost less. Possibly even being able to sustain having ONE youkai out at all times, as a basic summoner (Once they reach the aforementioned level of youkai, it will pay for 50% of a summon, then 1/3rd the cost of a summon.) GS' bonus will give the ability to pay for one (maybe two?) youkai at all times. This will give summoners a niche to actually afford the costs of summons, even if they're low-WIL summoners. Whereas with my first bit, they'd be able to summon forever if you had no FP and high FP regen.

So, tl;dr

Changes
*Make summons have static costs (1-20 is 1% of max FP/Youkai, 21-40 is 2%, 41-60 is 3%)
*Change Regen to work with these tiers.
--Cracked Mirror will refund maintenance cost of 1 youkai every round. (1-20 is full refund, 21-40 is 1/2 refund, 41-60 is 1/3 refund)
--GS Regen will refund Maintenance cost of 2 youkai every round, regardless of level.


Pros
* Everyone can be a summoner, regardless of WIL restraints
* Summons cost less now, yay!
* Low Level Summoners can ACTUALLY use a summon they like without penalty!

Cons
* Literally doesn't penalize Install at all. Will need to do diff stuff for that
* People with large amounts of FP will be experiencing large losses of FP if they summon, but will still keep the same amount of rounds they can keep something summoned.
* Uh. Everyone can be a summoner?


Thoughts and opinions?

[Chaos]

And then this topic went just about off the rails, as I feared.

I'm going to lock the topic. I'll make a topic for folks to discuss the Youkai summoning costs.