Summon Ideas

[Rolina]

Ideas for rebalancing/reworking and adding new summons that the coders come up with.

[leaf]

Well, I guess I'll kickstart this thread with the idea I had earlier...

As for discouraging mindless summon rushing... well, it wouldn't be easy, but if you could somehow make it so that the game keeps track of how many summons you use for a number of turns at a time, you could potentially place a "summon seal" on the party for whenever they exceed the limit. I think having no more than 4 summons in 4 turns would be the limit I would set. If someone wants to summon all four monos T1 for the elemental power bonus... sure, go ahead. If someone wants to try summoning every turn... sure, go ahead. If someone wants to just spam summons for the first several turns of battle to get it over with fast... can't let you do that, starfox!

If the HP% bonus was also changed to be 2%/djinni used instead of the current 3%/djinni used as we talked about before, it should leave summons as still very useful, but not the end-all, be-all.

[Rolina]

One idea I had is limiting summons... You can only summon a summon once per battle.  You can summon Thor and Boreas, but not Thor twice, for example.  You'd have to use summons intelligently rather than just spamming them.

[leaf]

I actually... really, really hate that idea. It ruins the flexibility of the system GS has always had. Why would you bother to set up your djinn so you could pull off a thor summon in one turn if you knew you could only pull off that trick once? Why would you set up any strat that involves summoning something repeatedly, even though doing so actually does require thought so as to not leave your team members with horrible stats due to weak classes? Why would you even use djinn if you knew that you wouldn't be able to recycle them easily with a quick summon? Not to mention how limiting each individual summon to one actually encourages summon rushing with multi-elemental summons?

I don't want to adversely change the way people use summons with this. They should still be a very powerful option, just with slightly less reward attached to them. If you have to use another mechanic to limit summon rushing, then fine, but it should have as little impact on other strats as possible. This is why I proposed a system where you can use up to four summons in four turns time; if you limited it to one summon per turn, you'd interfere with legitimate strats such as starting off a battle with four mono-elementals for the purpose of boosting your elemental power, or with players who burn through four djinn of each element, summon four spirits, and repeat (primarily something you'd do with base classes).

[Rolina]

Hmm, I can see your point.  That's not a bad idea.  It's similar to what I was thinking about, only it works much better.  How to pull it off, though, is another thing... we'll probably have to wait for a scripts editor or something to change how summons work...  But I'm sure we can figure it out...

So, do you have any ideas on changing current summons, or perhaps adding new ones?

[leaf]

Most of the summons can't be improved without either 1) improving the chances of their effects, which is based on the luck stat and we have no idea how it works, or 2) just plain increasing the damage dealt. Well, or 3) boosting the effects to 50% of whatever instead of 25% like they are now, which can't be done yet. And of course there's the option of 4) just change the effect entirely.

The first would be nice if we could do it... make summons like flora a bit more worthwhile. The second I'd rather not do, since that's just begging for people to summon rush with the multi-elementals... they have lower efficiency for a reason. And the third might be worth considering, although I think it'd be overshadowed by the ability to manipulate the first. Zagan doesn't need to drop 50% of defense if it could reliably drop 25%. The fourth option should probably be a last resort, but it would take care of some problems with status...

So... assuming no restrictions, I'd like to do something like the following:

Megaera: +12.5% attack to party, 40 base -> +25% attack to party, 40 base
When you already have fire djinn such as kindle or forge that boost your attack by 25%, megaera isn't really all that worth it. Although since it appears that whatever causes it to raise your attack isn't currently viewable by the editor, this will definitely have to wait.

Zagan: May drop 25% defense, 50 base -> Will drop 25% defense, 50 base
Make it guaranteed and suddenly zagan becomes a very worthwhile summon. Against bosses with 50 luck, it was essentially useless.

Moloch: Will drop 50% agility, 100 base
For some reason, agility drops seem to already always work. So I'm gonna leave moloch alone.

Flora: May inflict sleep, 80 base -> Will drop resistance by 20, 80 base?
I dunno what to do with flora. Her original effect would be broken if it always worked, even against bosses. She's the only one I think the only solution to is changing the effect entirely, although I'm also considering it on haures and azul... I'm also not really sure whether to make it drop by 20 or 40.

Ulysses: May steal opponent's next turn, 160 base -> Will steal opponent's next turn, 160 base
It uses 2 water and 2 fire djinn, so I don't think this would be broken when used in tandem with petra/ground. It's got very low efficiency (40 power/djinni), so if you're using this summon, you're using it for its effect.

Eclipse: May drop attack by 25%, 300 base -> Will drop attack by 12.5%, 250 base?
Eclipse was the second most efficient multi-elemental summon, carrying 60 base/djinni, the same as mono-elementals. In exchange for always dropping attack, I'm dropping its power down to only have 50 base/djinni. Not quite sure how balanced this would be, but it should be a good start.

Haures: May inflict venom, 270 base -> May inflict venom, 300 base
Congrats at becoming the new eclipse, haures! You have an awesome effect that will never activate, but you get to keep the same efficiency as lv4s! Venom is far too powerful of a status to make it reliable, so if we're keeping the venom, this is probably the best we can do for it.

Alternatively...
Haures: May inflict venom, 270 base -> Inflicts break, 270 base
Making the secondary effect actually have a purpose here.

Coatlicue: Will inflict regen on party
I'm not really sure if I should leave it as is or nerf it, actually. I've never used coatlicue too extensively, although theoretically it could make a party almost unkillable.

Azul: May inflict stun, 330 base -> May inflict stun, 370 base
Let's face it. Azul sucked in the original game. Its effect never activated, and it had a lowly 47.14 efficiency. At least this bumps it up to 52.86 efficiency. I don't wanna make it too much stronger, though, for obvious reasons. And stun would be too broken to work consistently.

Alternatively...
Azul: May inflict stun, 330 base -> Inflicts psynergy seal, 330 base
Such low efficiency is certainly excusable when you carry an effect that actually does something! The interesting thing is, depending on the hack, this could either be a buff or a nerf. The original doom dragon or dullahan would love to have their psynergy sealed, but they wouldn't be too happy about it if djinn blast and djinn storm were psynergy.

Daedalus: Exactly the same as the original (including HP% modifiers)
I think daedalus may have been one of the worst summons in the game, actually. The second attack uses a power of 78 for the damage instead of whatever the character's power was, greatly reducing the damage dealt. The second attack also carries the bulk of the HP% damage (15%, while the original summon is 7% for some reason) and the bulk of the base damage (250, while the original summon is 100). Perhaps keeping the HP% modifiers the same is a little too much, but at the least they shouldn't be nerfed as much as the other summons.

Catastrophe: Foe loses 10% of PP, 400 base -> Foe loses 10% of PP, 420 base
The PP damage is... cute. I just raised the efficiency of this summon from 50 to 52.5, so it's nothing too drastic.

Charon: May inflict downed, 500 base -> May inflicted downed, 525 base
Yeah, yeah, keeping the same efficiency as catastrophe.

Iris: Uses aurora field, 800 base, standard HP% bonus +1%
I can't say I'm really all that concerned about iris, for reasons I've stated numerous times already. For some reason she dealt 40% for the HP% damage instead of 39%, so... I figure may as well throw the dog a bone and keep that.

Now, if the djinn requirements for charon and iris were to change, then I might have a different response for them. Of the changes I've listed, the ones I'm not really sure about are flora, eclipse, haures, and azul.

[Rolina]

Coatlicue is the entire reason that I wanted to have a primary and secondary effect for summons.  She's a healing summon, sure (a BROKENLY POWERFUL regen effect, I might add.  60% healing each turn.  Yeaaah...).  I've always been kinda irked that she didn't have any offensive potential... I mean, sure, it's nice I guess to have a support summon, but I'd at least like to have some other effect... The regen itself is way too much.  If we nerf it down to, say 10% regen, and then have her purge ailments, THEN I'd be cool with it, but just the uber-healing?  There's like, two situations in the game when you needed it - Dullahan, and Doom Dragon, Ruin-spam mode.  Other than that, it's really not worth using.  However, lower the healing and give us the ailment purging effect, and I think it'd work well.


Actually, Catastrophe's gonna be a LOT more useful in this hack.  I intend for enemies to make good use of PP, so things like psy seals and PP damage are worth it, even on common foes.  Still, the 10% PP damage ain't too bad, either.  It seems somewhat decent, not broken at all.

Azul I think you did right.  Shouldn't buff the ailment too much for it, or it'll become too broken.
I love what you did with Megaera.  That should help her be much more useful.

For Flora, a combo of a very slight increase in infliction rate (which we SHOULD be able to give it when we get the effect editor), and/or a small buff in damage.

What we do with Charon and Iris depends on the direction the story takes with the hack.  We may change them to being non-elemental, and add a couple more summons, such as the Pandora idea from earlier (although, one that works better).  Pandora will have a low efficiency, but will induce several different ailments (reflecting the themes behind pandora's box).  Of course, what we'll do really depends on how everything works out...

[leaf]

Coatlicue is the entire reason that I wanted to have a primary and secondary effect for summons.  She's a healing summon, sure (a BROKENLY POWERFUL regen effect, I might add.  60% healing each turn.  Yeaaah...).  I've always been kinda irked that she didn't have any offensive potential... I mean, sure, it's nice I guess to have a support summon, but I'd at least like to have some other effect... The regen itself is way too much.  If we nerf it down to, say 10% regen, and then have her purge ailments, THEN I'd be cool with it, but just the uber-healing?  There's like, two situations in the game when you needed it - Dullahan, and Doom Dragon, Ruin-spam mode.  Other than that, it's really not worth using.  However, lower the healing and give us the ailment purging effect, and I think it'd work well.

Eh... I think something like 30% regen would be good, half of the original amount. For a lv40-50 party, that's around 180-240 HP per turn. For a lv99 party, that's like 310-420 HP per turn. With bosses attacking multiple times per turn, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all. It needs to heal a noteworthy amount for anyone to even consider using it (purging status for the whole party can be done with a djinni, so adding that to its effect isn't that beneficial), and if you're expending 6 djinn to use it, it better be worthwhile. A 10% regen with status purging sounds more like something you'd expect from a 3 djinn summon...

Actually, Catastrophe's gonna be a LOT more useful in this hack.  I intend for enemies to make good use of PP, so things like psy seals and PP damage are worth it, even on common foes.  Still, the 10% PP damage ain't too bad, either.  It seems somewhat decent, not broken at all.

Well, the thing is, bosses should probably be designed such that they don't run out of PP if they rely on it... sapping 50 PP from something with 500 PP using a costly summon isn't really gonna do that much.

Azul I think you did right.  Shouldn't buff the ailment too much for it, or it'll become too broken.

Do you mean the psy seal variant or the buffed damage variant?

I love what you did with Megaera.  That should help her be much more useful.

That's the plan. The summons that messed with stats either didn't do enough (as with megaera) or they weren't consistent enough (as with all the others).

For Flora, a combo of a very slight increase in infliction rate (which we SHOULD be able to give it when we get the effect editor), and/or a small buff in damage.

Well, the problem is, unless you make it consistent against bosses, no one will use it. It runs off of the same premise of instant kill moves... sure, they may have a nice reward when they land, but they almost never work. If you can't reliably land a status against a foe, you're not going to try to use the status in the first place. And if you buffed the damage, the most you could do is make it a second procne... something I don't particularly want to do. I really think she just needs a brand new effect.

What we do with Charon and Iris depends on the direction the story takes with the hack.  We may change them to being non-elemental, and add a couple more summons, such as the Pandora idea from earlier (although, one that works better).  Pandora will have a low efficiency, but will induce several different ailments (reflecting the themes behind pandora's box).  Of course, what we'll do really depends on how everything works out...

K. I guess we'll have to get back to them later, then.

What did you think of the others? Particularly haures and eclipse?

[Rolina]

Yeah, bosses aren't what I was talking about as far as Catastrophe's effect was concerned.  I mean PP damage/sealing in general with enemies, and in Catastrophe's case, some of the stronger enemies.

Azul:  Damage increase variant.

Flora:  Well, ailments rarely work on bosses anyways.  Flora is a summon that's more helpful against mooks than it is against major foes.  I don't think all summons should be made with boss-slaying in mind.

Eclipse:  It's a good start, I guess.  We'll need testing to make sure though, of course.
Haures:  To be honest, I'm not too sure about Haures... if it stays earth (cave dwelling, or something like that...), then I'm cool with it.  If we make him non-elemental because of the seemingly dark nature, then it depends on how we approach it.  But I'm not sure what to do with him, as he could work as either.

Also, I'm gonna post some other ideas for ailments for you to look at.  You may wanna add some of them.

[leaf]

Well, since catastrophe does 10% PP damage, it doesn't matter what kind of PP reserves they have... it's always going to be pitiful. Plus... who burns catastrophe on mooks? If you're rushing through an area, you want as high efficiency as you can get so you can blow through them quickly with time to recover.

As for flora... that's a problem, then, isn't it! Regular enemies have too little HP for summons to be worth it against them unless you're just busting them all in one turn. Most enemies die in two djinn strikes, some in three, and the weak ones in only one. Unless you plan on making enemies extremely tedious to fight (in which case the player will just run from battles constantly because it's not worth it), no one is going to be using flora on them. You can't make effects that are supposed to be for prolonged battles and say they're for stomping mooks. This is why I liked the way the fire emblem games did things... there were only a limited number of enemies on any given level, plus (usually) a boss. The enemies were entirely worth your time to defeat, since if you didn't, 1) they would probably get in your way while taking out the boss or even just trying to cross the level, at which point they were liable to hurt you even more than they would have had you taken a more strategical approach, and 2) you would end up with very little experience. The enemies, however, could be actual threats to you. Games with random encounters can't do that, though, or they risk making the game very tedious for players. Let's face it... if you're playing an RPG with random encounters you're probably playing it for the puzzles, the storyline, and the bosses... not for the random encounters. The reason I suggested it reduce resistance is that no other summon does that, and it's a low enough level summon for it to be worthwhile.

And I'm fine with going with the damage increase variant of azul, as long as you recognize that it will only ever be used in summon rushing. Azul, daedalus, and catastrophe are all going to be used solely for summon rushing, actually. Of course, costing 7 djinn for the first two and 8 for the third, you can't really expect players to be summoning them for an effect to begin with... unless said effect was broken.

And if you made haures dark, you'd have to make eclipse light. The two summons are fairly unique in that they both possess fairly good efficiency, cost 3 djinn of one element and 2 of another... and together use all four elements. I originally just wanted to give them both 300 base and say "screw it" to the effects, since truly, once you get passed them and coatlicue (which is also in a rather interesting place on the djinn cost spectrum, if you think about it), everything above that is just going to be used in summon rushing. Eclipse and haures are some of the only "damage only" multi-elementals you might consider using in regular combat.

If I were to make more summons, they would likely be lower level summons with effects that fill in anything missing (ie. if going with the damage variant of azul, creating a new 3 or 4 djinn summon that seals psynergy). Making any more high level multi-elementals is just asking for them to be used for summon rushing more than anything else.

I'll check out the ailments thread.

[Rolina]

Actually, Golden Sun actually does that at one point.  When you hit a certain level in the Sol Sanctum, random encounters stop happening, so we could implement something like that if we so desired.

My idea for Pandora was the 'two of each type' summon.  Non elemental, doesn't have all that much base damage, but inflicts a slew of ailments, including, but not limited to, all types of poison (upgraded obviously override, but are rarer than base versions), delusion, stun, sleep, all types of seals (except High Seal), haunt, jinxed, etc...  Of course, it's not guaranteed - each ailment has a certain chance of success, some more than others.  If all else fails, delude is guaranteed, so at least one ailment will be inflicted, if not more.

Figured the animation would be similar in style to cruel ruin, where she opens the box then BAM!  Cruel Ruin-esque animation with the box at the center (though not exactly a copy).

I also have another idea:  Eris.  A weaker summon, costing maybe three djinn (which kinds, I don't know).  Damages all enemies, then has a chance for each one to attack an ally, similar to mold.

[leaf]

Actually, Golden Sun actually does that at one point.  When you hit a certain level in the Sol Sanctum, random encounters stop happening, so we could implement something like that if we so desired.

Ah, yes. That's true. We would probably need to come up with some kind of storyline explanation for why enemies suddenly stop attacking you on the world map after you hit a certain point in the game, or even partway through a dungeon. I can think of a few ideas depending on how light or dark the storyline would be (the monsters become afraid of your power and begin to run away from you, or by becoming stronger you make some sort of holy field repel the monsters weaker than you...). Hm... with a system where the enemies stop attacking you after you grow a level or two in a certain area, we could really have some fun designing the regular enemies >=D

My idea for Pandora was the 'two of each type' summon.  Non elemental, doesn't have all that much base damage, but inflicts a slew of ailments, including, but not limited to, all types of poison (upgraded obviously override, but are rarer than base versions), delusion, stun, sleep, all types of seals (except High Seal), haunt, jinxed, etc...  Of course, it's not guaranteed - each ailment has a certain chance of success, some more than others.  If all else fails, delude is guaranteed, so at least one ailment will be inflicted, if not more.

Figured the animation would be similar in style to cruel ruin, where she opens the box then BAM!  Cruel Ruin-esque animation with the box at the center (though not exactly a copy).

If the percent chance ignores luck (and thus is actually viable against bosses), that sounds pretty neat, although it could get pretty broken pretty fast if not done carefully.

I also have another idea:  Eris.  A weaker summon, costing maybe three djinn (which kinds, I don't know).  Damages all enemies, then has a chance for each one to attack an ally, similar to mold.

My only problem with it is that it's a damage-only summon, which we don't really need any more of.

[Rolina]

Well, the basic gist was that it goes off of her 'goddess of discord' thing, and that's the closest thing to a confusion ailment I can think of.  Of course, if we can fiddle with the code enough to make a confusion ailment, where there's a 50% chance for an enemy to do that instead of their next action (or ally, for that matter), then that's what Eris would inflict.

[leaf]

Ah, yeah. Well, that would be better.

And since I just checked my messages...

Just an interesting idea that I have that I can't really share otherwise:

What if you made multi-elemental summons with certain elements in them have certain "tendencies", where certain elements code for certain effects? For example, Mercury may be healing, Mars damage efficiency, Venus ailments, Jupiter status mods. Because right now there doesn't really seem to be a link, while I think having a link like that would be really kind of neat.

So based off of that, maybe the primary element determines what element damage it does, while the secondary element gives its "tendency" to the summon?

Just a thought.

Personally, I'm against it, as it would mean completely changing most of the summons...

[Rolina]

I've been against that since they first brought crap like that up.  Are they STILL going on about that, despite me already putting my foot down on this?

[Today]

Today at 18:00:23

Teawater: By the way, I was wondering, did anyone else notice the ".gba" ROM in the Downloads section?

[Today]

Today at 16:54:26

JamietheFlameUser: Well, that particular Briggs fight was from a long time ago. I haven't been working on my current hack the past few days because of other stuff.

[Today]

Today at 16:40:10

Luna_blade: @Saturos: Your english exams?

[Today]

Today at 16:33:40

Teawater: Can't remember exactly what shae of yellow it was, so not sure it would be too close or not.

[Today]

Today at 16:30:58

Teawater: @KoP: Wouldn't Shiny Gold be for the Sol Clan?

[Today]

Today at 15:37:37

Salanewt: Oh wait, tag doesn't work down here. But yeah, how is your hack going Jamie?

[Today]

Today at 15:37:00

Salanewt: [me] considers giving him the Sol Blade...

[Today]

Today at 15:36:00

Salanewt: Oh my. To be honest though, I'd be more likely to give Briggs stuff from later regions; him being a pirate from another continent and all.

[Today]

Today at 09:36:58

JamietheFlameUser: How not to design boss fights: give human-type bosses stats and equipment on par for what the Editor says their level is and what equipment is available where they're from. You get stuff like an actually scaled to level 21 Briggs with a Great Sword, Silver Plate, Silver Helm, Vambrace, and Leather Boots. God, that was BS.

[Today]

Today at 09:09:49

Saturos: Wow first part of exam is ower (in english) tomorow speaking part.

[Today]

Today at 07:11:35

JamietheFlameUser: Eh, I didn't know the exact chance of Curse screwing you over. Still, that 6% chance to fail to act at all could screw you over when it matters most. The obvious solution, of course, is to stick that armour on a character who doesn't do anything but spam attack moves anyway.

[Today]

Today at 07:10:52

leaf: ...assuming I'm remembering the chance of curse taking effect correctly as 25%

[Today]

Today at 07:09:50

leaf: in fact, you get two turns the majority of the time (~56%), and only completely fail to act ~6%, the remainder of the time getting one action

[Today]

Today at 07:07:49

leaf: I like that stealth armor buff. it wouldn't make sense to do that with the clerics ring available, but if you remove that, it's actually an interesting item. On average, you get ~1.5 turns per round. it's potentially very strong, but carries risks

[Today]

Today at 07:04:59

leaf: lol

[Today]

Today at 06:39:21

JamietheFlameUser: Reading the Venus Psynergy topic and 'lol'ing at Role's reaction to a very simple spell idea I'd had (and still think is awesome), where rock explodes out of the ground from a single point in a focused, cone-shaped burst. Role read me the riot act about not combining elements again. lol.

[Today]

Today at 06:17:58

JamietheFlameUser: Well, one thing I came up with that was actually potentially cool is a modification to the Stealth Armour. I gave it +1 turns, under the assumption that the Cleric's Ring would be removed. You might get 2 actions that round, or 1 action, or maybe no actions at all! RNG at its finest.

[Today]

Today at 06:15:32

Knight of Purgatory: Nice orange text kain. Maybe it should be a shiny gold

[Today]

Today at 06:03:40

leaf: I concur. There isn't much I'd consider worth salvaging from dc in terms of work done, but reading the old threads can be quite amusing

[Today]

Today at 06:01:48

JamietheFlameUser: LOL I'm looking at the DCrisis Items/Equipment section. Role and I were both so immature about it (me especially) that it's hilarious in hindsight.

View All

refresh