[Chaos]

Since people believe that Youkai's Maint. costs are a major issue, Here's a topic to discuss it in.

[Autumn]

The fantasy of having a personal army is a favorite amongst a few people, but the cost of upkeeping that can be quite steep too, so what most people end up using grand summoner for is for installing and better FP regens via cracked mirror and it's upgrade, as well as Evoke Mastery , Its honestly pretty...eh, Following up on Rendar's post from the last thread, %FP management would be pretty ideal, but at the same time it would cause problems with people who purposefully get higher FP amounts (say for example a lich summoner) but I do like the idea that everyone could summon with that kind of kit.

I propose something along the lines of having Youkai management go up the same as it does now, but also having cracked mirror and absorb ether take off a percentage of youkai management costs (perhaps 20% and 30% respectively leading to 50% decrease) If worried about balance of FP regen issues, it could also have a nerf to the FP regen values, but I don't believe that's would be neccesary.

That is my proposal.

[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?

[Ranylyn]

Before I get to my post, I just wanted to address...

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.

... um, what? Your thread was about Summoner being used for instaling instead of summoning, and we were addressing all the issues with summoning that got it neglected... how is that off topic? Yes, your topic was calling for an install nerf, and we weren't directly going "omg install OP pls nerf" along with you but rather discussing tweaks to summoning itself to make Summoning worth using so we COULD nerf installs without rendering the class completely useless. That's the opposite of off topic. By that logic, every single topic ever has been off topic, since it's impossible to discuss one isolated issue completely on it's own without other issues coming up since everything affects each other.


That said, I would like to point out one massive problem with the % Drainage idea, and one that I feel is very worth mentioning. Due to FP recovery effects (Channel Magic, Power Up, Descending Uroboros, etc) a percentage cost would actively penalize high FP summoners and make low FP summoners absolutely ridiculous. If one could keep their max FP below 200, for example, a Dh/GS combo could sustain 6 youkai with Uroboros alone (Just jumping in place for the FP) Or 12 within one range (for 2 Uroboros uses per turn) enabling some rather ridiculous outlast mechanics with Aegis. Considering Summoners are a largely Will based class (40% Will on GS, and most youkai skills scaling with will) it seems counterintuitive to penalize high FP summoners.

[Rendar]

If they're using their entire turn to gain FP, then it doesn't really matter? If they're summoning 12 youkai and not attacking themselves, and not being entirely capable of fighting. That means there are 12 scattered youkai across the entire map that a target can pick off with a bit of ease. Sure, it's not perfect..

It's still sure as fuck better than what's going on right now though.

[Ranylyn]

Rendar » Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:31 pm[/url]"]It's still sure as fuck better than what's going on right now though.

I do wholeheartedly agree. I'm simply pointing out one powerful counterpoint that IS worth considering, since I'd argue 6 youkai can probably outdamage 1 player if summoned near the opponent instead of being SS'd.

[Rendar]

If they're summoning them 1 by 1, that means that at max a turn they can summon 2, that won't act until next turn. Which means they can be picked off rather easily.

[Ignored Knowledge]

Rendar » Thu Oct 15, 2015 10:13 pm[/url]"]Why not just go with % drainage?

Like. 1 youkai is 2% of your maximum FP?

If we change the maintenance to % of maximum FP, then it will be a matter of who has the lowest FP to have the best Summoning maintaining due to FP regenerating items, skills, talents and other things. Someone with 100 FP will hold off better than someone with 200 FP. Because someone with 100 FP will have a less FP cost than someone with 200 or more. The lowest maximum FP will profit more from FP regeneration. People won't be gaining WIL to be a good summoner but will purposely miss WIL to be a good summoner.


I suggest just slapping on an innate or passive to Grand Summoner that will reduce youkai costs by 60% or 50% at max rank (rounded down) because Grand Summoner is a class that sponsors using multiple youkai with its skills giving power to deploying multiple youkai, and to maintaining it --while Bonder is a class that favors just three youkai. Under an innate or passive such as this, being a Grand Summoner with the intentions of using multiple youkai will achieve being possible with a cost that is affordable and where people can't just run away from them until the summoner loses all its FP. While Bonder will still be challenged to a point of keeping 1 to 3 youkai out; where one youkai is suitable, two is a drain, and all three could be hard for most, and if four or more well you lost your Bonds and your FP is crashing.

Someone could always go both grand summoner and bonder to transfer the cost reduction, but that's basically how the game is: Multiclassing for situational benefits or growths. If someone wants to multiclass Grand Summoner with Bonder just for the cost reduction, I see no problem with it.

Rendar » Fri Oct 16, 2015 12:31 am[/url]"]It's still sure as fuck better than what's going on right now though.

Pretty much everything in this thread is so far. Youkai summoning is a different dynamic of combat which can be fresh and fun for others (I would also like to be-able to play a youkai summoning summoner), but like Chaos implied in one of his other summoner threads, rarely anyone uses a youkai on the field. And from my own perception, it's getting close to side with nonexistence with non-newcomers. And from my own experience, I was about to make one myself until I realize the cost problem. Whatever way is used I hope it b̶a̶l̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ fixes the feature to being more possible for what it may seem to be intended for.

[MegaBlues]

Just poking my head in to say that everyone needs to remember -why- maintenance costs were jacked up to be so high. If costs are reduced back to old-ish levels without fixing anything else, then Grand Summoner will be too strong again.

[Chaos]

Ranylyn » Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:51 pm[/url]"]... um, what? Your thread was about Summoner being used for instaling instead of summoning, and we were addressing all the issues with summoning that got it neglected... how is that off topic? Yes, your topic was calling for an install nerf, and we weren't directly going "omg install OP pls nerf" along with you but rather discussing tweaks to summoning itself to make Summoning worth using so we COULD nerf installs without rendering the class completely useless. That's the opposite of off topic. By that logic, every single topic ever has been off topic, since it's impossible to discuss one isolated issue completely on it's own without other issues coming up since everything affects each other.

There is a difference between 'adding on' and 'completely turning in a different direction'. You also completely ignored the presence of Sync-Mind's part in the aforementioned topic, which veers your argument quite off-track from what I was talking about, beyond two pieces in passing. Either way, the conversation was going whole-piece to 'hey lets buff Summoner maintenance' with no mention of any other part. While I admit that the title was a poor choice, the table was still metaphorically flipped, and the conversation was best continued on its own plate.

Ignored Knowledge » Sat Oct 17, 2015 11:54 pm[/url]"]If we change the maintenance to % of maximum FP, then it will be a matter of who has the lowest FP to have the best Summoning maintaining due to FP regenerating items, skills, talents and other things. Someone with 100 FP will hold off better than someone with 200 FP. Because someone with 100 FP will have a less FP cost than someone with 200 or more. The lowest maximum FP will profit more from FP regeneration. People won't be gaining WIL to be a good summoner but will purposely miss WIL to be a good summoner.

Trying to minimize WIL in order to get an FP regen trick is a godawful idea. Here's why:
1. You have to forfeit your turns for a majority of methods to recover FP, or sacrifice some great part of your build to achieve it
2. You are inferior in anything that involves WIL (hint: GS/Youkai have a lot of WIL-dependent stuff)
3. You cannot handle any form of FP damage
4. Interference will completely lock you out of the desperately-needed FP regen, if not reverse it
5. Any GS Invocation (which are the ones you need) will not only be very costly, but very easy to break
6. Once the Youkai go down, you not only have very little FP to work with, but given the kind of build you have, you are most likely ill-equipped to properly counter an opponent that has been given a lot of time to set themselves up

It's about as reasonable as setting a character's VIT low enough to negate Poison's DoT via HP regen. Not only are you garbage in the tenacity department, but any other DoT status (Burn, Lingering Damage, etc.) will take large chunks out of your health at a time. Not to mention the poor lore about it. ('I'm not particularly healthy/quite frail, but poison can't outdamage my healing!' Chew on that for a bit)

Making the Youkai take off a percentage of FP (and having FP regen skills change into directly easing that off instead) is a fair enough idea, and probably the only idea presented so far that can be used while keeping Youkai Summoning from becoming the monster it used to be. However, I would use a (Youkai LV/15)% FP maintenance (Min. 1%), especially if the skills would be changed to suit the idea. Having at least half a dozen max-level Youkai run around for any more than 5~6 turns will become ridiculous.