News:

The forum has been updated to SMF (2.1.3)!
Please be patient as we work to polish up the place and update features as we can.

Main Menu

An idea to prevent summon rushing

Started by Misery, 10, February, 2015, 03:02:59 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Misery

Background

Summons - or more specifically, summon rushing - is often cited as a game breaker in Golden Sun, especially in the second game. I've already commented on what I see as the main reasons for this, so I'll just quote myself:

Quote from: Misery on 26, January, 2015, 02:01:50 PM
I wouldn't say the balance issue is that summons are too strong against high HP bosses - rather, the issue with them doing HP% damage is that you can have access to them instantly, i.e. summon rushing. More specifically, the later parts of The Lost Age has mechanics that mitigate the balancing factors of summon rushing. Those are:
-Multi-element summons (feed a higher amount djinn into an attack of the desired element)
-Backup party (bypass the class penalty)
-Ability to carry up to 18 djinn of every element (summon costs become considerably less restricting)

This naturally means that you can defeat any enemy with little regard to character levels, equipment, classes, or anything really.

As I also mentioned in that thread, there's really no best way to balance them. Since summons do damage that scale with the target's max HP, they can be very useful in boss battles without overkilling randomly encountered enemies, through the entire game. Relative elemental power also contributes significantly to the final damage, since it's a multiplier stacked on top of another multiplier, so this also increases the value of elemental power. While it's possible to reduce or outright remove the HP% damage, this takes away from the main function of summons. So, I've tried to think of alternatives.

One kind of solution

What I've been thinking about is making it so only djinn that have been set to standby in battle (by unleashing them) can be used for summons. This would make summon rushing simply not work, but without affecting any other playstyle. You could still use summons normally, and you could still leave leftover djinn on standby to avoid messing up your class.

Quote from: Misery on 10, February, 2015, 09:30:46 AM
The idea is to add the cost of a character action for every elemental level you make available for summoning, instead of getting a potential 72 levels in 0 actions on the first turn.

The simplest way I can think of to do this (without causing unnecessary gameplay restrictions) is to keep track of how many standby djinn of each element each character entered the battle with, and prevent that amount from being used in summoning until they are set manually.

The drawback of this method? The game never stated that you shouldn't be able to use summons because you put the djinn at standby a specific way (manually from the menu). But then again, they probably didn't account for the high number of djinn you could potentially get, at the time the system was created. And there's also the fact that the code might be a bit complex... which is why I would like some opinions on how feasible this seems.

Implementation

I'll just give the general concept for this, since I'm honestly pretty awkward at working with ASM (read: I have basically no idea what I'm doing), and just making sense of the summoning function alone would take me forever.
Note: "elemental levels" in this post exclusively refers to djinn costs for summoning, not elemental levels on the characters

First, we'll obviously need to keep track of how many standby djinn of each element every character enters battle with. This data can be stored in 16 bytes by using each byte for the djinn of two elements for a character (unless you wanted them to have more than 15 djinn each for some reason). I assume it would best be stored in RAM. So we need a function that writes to whatever location we assign for this, based on the character djinn data at 0x02000B48. This function should be run only at the start of battles.

Now, when the elemental levels available for summoning are determined (which I have no idea when or how it happens), subtract a number (will usually be 0 though) from each element according to the data we just created, from the currently active party members (not backup party). The result of this is what the summon should check for at the time of execution.

If the function for summoning works the way I hope it does, this would also set the "preview" of available standby djinn to their effective values, as well as prevent Valukar from summoning your djinn before you have unleashed them (or before he has set them to standby with Djinn Stun).

Also, whenever a character uses the "set" djinn command in battle, the "standby djinn counter" we created should be decremented by 1, assuming the value for that element on that character is greater than 0.

I think this should work, but of course it's possible I have overlooked something. Feel free to ask if I've been unclear about something, or neglected to mention something. Other questions, comments or suggestions are welcome as well.

Luna_blade

Quite a good idea.
I also must admit I used summon rushing on weak bosses. Especially in GS1.
Although I may have done it wrong, but I was never able to destroy doom dragon or Dullahan with summon rushing. Those bosses just do to much damage to survive 1 turn with no djinni's.

I'm sorta trying to say that balanced strong bosses wouldn't even be summon-rushable, but it is still a good idea.
"Hear the sounds and melodies
Of rilets flowing down
They're the verlasting songs
Whispering all the time
As a warning that behind some rocks
There's a rigid grap even
Oreads fear the tread"

Salanewt

Definitely an interesting idea. The major con being that you are unable to plan for using summons before battle, but that's also the point of your idea.

So, erm, I guess the best way of doing something like this would be to add another "state" that djinn can be in. You already have set/standby/recovery, but maybe something like a "ready" state could work for when you use a set djinni in battle, and then that would automatically be converted to standby if it hasn't been set or used in a summon by the time a battle ends. That way you don't have to keep track of the standby djinn you enter battle with because that would be a field state while ready is only used in battle. The cool thing is that, with the willpower, it could be possible to tack this onto the recovery RAM data as a separate set of checks and conditions. Or something.

On that note, I have the feeling that the summon system was originally designed for a cap of about four djinn/element in mind (you never use more than four per summon, they never deal more than 12% HP damage or have additional effects in GS1, classes generally come with five or fewer tiers with two exceptions in GS2, the first game suddenly drops a barrage of random djinn over a few dungeons before the credits, most stats having caps that end in the number 9 (4+5 = 9), etc.), so your idea is probably one of the better ways of dealing the system in cases where the djinni/element count is higher than that, like pretty much any unmodified GS game or most hacks. I like it!

Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas

#3
QuoteDefinitely an interesting idea. The major con being that you are unable to plan for using summons before battle, but that's also the point of your idea.
Ofcourse, if you wanted to allow for summons on first turn... You could maybe limit them to one summon per round... But then if you used a really weak summon like Venus or something... Then it could be better to use some type of counter number so you can use another weak summon? (For example, the strongest summons could make it impossible to use a summon next round.) I think I'd call it the Summon Cooldown timer or something.

You could be even more creative by giving each Summon their own cooldown timer... possibly.
Which should allow you to use other summons when these are cooling down.... Even to the point that a summon could become a once-only per battle.
Since they can have their own effects and stuff.

(Not sure if every summon would add anything to the cool-down of all the other summons or not, even if of the same element.)
Golden Sun Docs: Broken Seal - The Lost Age - Dark Dawn | Mario Sports Docs: Mario Golf & Mario Tennis | Misc. Docs
Refer to Yoshi's Lighthouse for any M&L hacking needs...

Sometimes I like to compare apples to oranges. (Figuratively) ... They are both fruits, but which one would you eat more? (If taken literally, I'd probably choose apples.)
Maybe it is over-analyzing, but it doesn't mean the information is useless.


The only GS Discord servers with significance are:
Golden Sun Hacking Community
GS Speedrunning
/r/Golden Sun
GS United Nations
Temple of Kraden

Can you believe how small the Golden Sun Community is?

2+2=5 Don't believe me? Those are rounded decimal numbers. Take that, flat earth theorists! :)

Misery

#4
Quote from: Luna_blade on 10, February, 2015, 04:44:02 PM
Quite a good idea.
I also must admit I used summon rushing on weak bosses. Especially in GS1.
Although I may have done it wrong, but I was never able to destroy doom dragon or Dullahan with summon rushing. Those bosses just do to much damage to survive 1 turn with no djinni's.

I'm sorta trying to say that balanced strong bosses wouldn't even be summon-rushable, but it is still a good idea.
There are some things certain bosses do to make summon rushing harder or riskier. The worst obstacle is probably Guard Aura. Dullahan actually has a ton of things that make him especially dangerous for summon users, but he can still be taken down easily by spamming Eclipse and Daedalus and sacrificing the front party, if you just get lucky. Just use barrier djinn to negate the damage, and/or Lull/Ground/Petra to make him lose turns.
Dullahan gets:
-Extremely high elemental resistances to cut down summon damage
-Break, prevents you from taking advantage of the elemental power boost from summons
-Haunt, may kill any character doing 4x or more of their own HP in damage (usually the case), although it doesn't stop them from doing damage
-"Formina Sage", generally instant death if you don't have the defense bonus of a higher tier class
-Charon, just kills a lot of people easily
-Djinn Storm, although it really doesn't make much difference compared to hitting a fully classed character, it still stops summons

I think the fact that summons take him down so easily in spite of all these things is a testament to how powerful they are.

Doom Dragon has just about the best natural defense there is against summons, barring full immunity (doesn't exist). Since its HP is split in 3 parts, summons do less of his total HP in damage. You also don't know when Guard Aura will come, and he has Djinn Blast and ultimately, Djinn Storm. You can still do pretty well against it with summons though, by using just a single character for summoning and bringing in "djinn batteries" from the back row.

Star Magician also gets Guard Aura, though again, there's nothing stopping you from bringing in those djinn batteries as soon as the Guardian Balls are out of sight. I'm pretty sure 5 rounds of Ulysses (10 Mars + 10 Mercury) will take him out with no damage from anything else, unless you let him heal. Ulysses may also stop the balls from acting.

But I suppose you could argue that you need to know what you're doing for these things, and the easy wins are rewards for coming up with the best summoning setups. I don't actually think summons are quite as broken as some people make them out to be, although the fact that summon rushing is nearly always the best strategy (and still a great option when it's not the best) kind of irks me.

Quote from: Lord Squirtle on 10, February, 2015, 05:10:20 PM
Definitely an interesting idea. The major con being that you are unable to plan for using summons before battle, but that's also the point of your idea.

So, erm, I guess the best way of doing something like this would be to add another "state" that djinn can be in. You already have set/standby/recovery, but maybe something like a "ready" state could work for when you use a set djinni in battle, and then that would automatically be converted to standby if it hasn't been set or used in a summon by the time a battle ends. That way you don't have to keep track of the standby djinn you enter battle with because that would be a field state while ready is only used in battle. The cool thing is that, with the willpower, it could be possible to tack this onto the recovery RAM data as a separate set of checks and conditions. Or something.

On that note, I have the feeling that the summon system was originally designed for a cap of about four djinn/element in mind (you never use more than four per summon, they never deal more than 12% HP damage or have additional effects in GS1, classes generally come with five or fewer tiers with two exceptions in GS2, the first game suddenly drops a barrage of random djinn over a few dungeons before the credits, most stats having caps that end in the number 9 (4+5 = 9), etc.), so your idea is probably one of the better ways of dealing the system in cases where the djinni/element count is higher than that, like pretty much any unmodified GS game or most hacks. I like it!
Dang, I had a feeling someone would be able to think of a simpler way to do it. That's definitely a good thing though, even if I'm sure the method I suggested isn't as complex as I make it sound. It doesn't help that I don't know how the game determines how many djinn are ready for summoning. If a new state would make them considered not ready, then yeah, that's probably the best way.

I agree with the summon system probably being designed primarily for a lower amount of djinn; only being able to use one summon of the boss's weakness already puts a damper on summoning effectiveness. What do you mean with the "stat caps"? Are you talking about djinn used for classes?

Quote from: Fox on 10, February, 2015, 05:37:11 PM
QuoteDefinitely an interesting idea. The major con being that you are unable to plan for using summons before battle, but that's also the point of your idea.
Ofcourse, if you wanted to allow for summons on first turn... You could maybe limit them to one summon per round... But then if you used a really weak summon like Venus or something... Then it could be better to use some type of counter number so you can use another weak summon? (For example, the strongest summons could make it impossible to use a summon next round.) I think I'd call it the Summon Cooldown timer or something.

You could be even more creative by having a cooldown timer for each summon... possibly. Since they can have their own effects and stuff.
Yeah it's a bit of a shame you can't prepare summons, and I was actually considering something like "allow x amount of standby djinn to be used for summoning". But seriously, that would get too complex, and also feels very arbitrary.

1 summon per round and cooldown timer are both excellent ideas IMO, they both address the problem without locking you out of summon use. They also make a lot of sense as restrictions, 1 per round because it's kind of ridiculous to have everyone constantly summoning deities, and cooldown becase summons are designed to have a cooldown (it's just that you can bypass this with a high enough amount of djinn)

Salanewt

And it also provides another method of dealing and/or utilizing moves like Crucible. Bonus if enemies with abilities like that can also grab from standby djinn in some way.

Oh, the stat thing is mostly talking about trends. For example, HP/PP cap at 1999, luck and level at 99, and the rest at 9999. Out of all of those points, the stat thing is probably the least compelling for the "probably had a lower cap in mind" conclusion.


As for the "game knowing which djinn are in which state" part, each character has a certain portion of their RAM data dedicated to their eStats and djinn stuff, and they are all calculated in a way where only a few bytes account for 20 djinn of a given element (dummy ones included). The funny thing is that there's probably enough space to rework this section and structure it more like what Dark Dawn has, but that's probably best for a different topic.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas

#6
I think I edited my post after you read it?

And with each Summon having their own individual cooldown, it'd be easy to make it 1 summon per round, me thinks... That, and the added customization may be neat for giving people something to play-test?

1. 1 summon per round = Might only need one flag to work? (Or zero, depending on how code is arranged.)
2. General Cooldown Timer = Might only need one byte to work? ... Can be as effective as above.
3. Summon-specific Cooldown timers = ~0x1C+ bytes depending on number of summons... ... Can be effective as above two.

The best part is that none of it needs to be in save-game data, so it could be allocated in the 02030000 section. (That is, as long as there's no out-of-battle recovery time like djinn.)


@Dark Dawn: Wait? Dark Dawn works differently? Maybe I should look that up some time? Hm...
Golden Sun Docs: Broken Seal - The Lost Age - Dark Dawn | Mario Sports Docs: Mario Golf & Mario Tennis | Misc. Docs
Refer to Yoshi's Lighthouse for any M&L hacking needs...

Sometimes I like to compare apples to oranges. (Figuratively) ... They are both fruits, but which one would you eat more? (If taken literally, I'd probably choose apples.)
Maybe it is over-analyzing, but it doesn't mean the information is useless.


The only GS Discord servers with significance are:
Golden Sun Hacking Community
GS Speedrunning
/r/Golden Sun
GS United Nations
Temple of Kraden

Can you believe how small the Golden Sun Community is?

2+2=5 Don't believe me? Those are rounded decimal numbers. Take that, flat earth theorists! :)

Misery

Quote from: Lord Squirtle on 10, February, 2015, 07:02:42 PM
And it also provides another method of dealing and/or utilizing moves like Crucible. Bonus if enemies with abilities like that can also grab from standby djinn in some way.
No ò_ó

QuoteOh, the stat thing is mostly talking about trends. For example, HP/PP cap at 1999, luck and level at 99, and the rest at 9999. Out of all of those points, the stat thing is probably the least compelling for the "probably had a lower cap in mind" conclusion.
Yeah, that probably doesn't have anything to do with the amount of djinn you get.

QuoteAs for the "game knowing which djinn are in which state" part, each character has a certain portion of their RAM data dedicated to their eStats and djinn stuff, and they are all calculated in a way where only a few bytes account for 20 djinn of a given element (dummy ones included). The funny thing is that there's probably enough space to rework this section and structure it more like what Dark Dawn has, but that's probably best for a different topic.
I've been messing around a bit with djinn and looking at how it affects this data, although I don't know the specifics of how it works... which is just about as good as knowing nothing, but I guess each djinni has a select few bits dedicated to it somehow. So does the game also determine the state of the djinn based on those few bytes? Sounds like it could get complicated then, if you wanted to add a new state...

Quote from: Fox on 10, February, 2015, 07:15:58 PM
I think I edited my post after you read it?
Seems that way, and I also think I responded to what you quoted from Squirtle. xD

I interpreted it as an individual per-summon cooldown. I don't think a general cooldown for all or multiple summons would be a good idea. When I said they're designed to have a cooldown, I was referring to the djinn being put in recovery, effectively preventing you from using that summon again for a number of turns (depending on how djinn are spread across the characters). But if you have enough djinn to use the summon twice, that pretty much doesn't matter. :/

Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas

#8
QuoteI interpreted it as an individual per-summon cooldown. I don't think a general cooldown for all or multiple summons would be a good idea.
I feel sort of the same way, And even so, the General Cooldown could be PC-specific, or Elemental-specific, or something else depending on needs... (Summon-specific might be the best of those?)

QuoteWhen I said they're designed to have a cooldown, I was referring to the djinn being put in recovery, effectively preventing you from using that summon again for a number of turns (depending on how djinn are spread across the characters). But if you have enough djinn to use the summon twice, that pretty much doesn't matter. :/
Well, yeah, so my question is... How exactly would our cooldown timer be incremented? Plus 1 for every element level it has? (So if you use a Summon with 4 Mercury, you have to wait 4 rounds to use it again? Maybe even add an additional round by default?)
Golden Sun Docs: Broken Seal - The Lost Age - Dark Dawn | Mario Sports Docs: Mario Golf & Mario Tennis | Misc. Docs
Refer to Yoshi's Lighthouse for any M&L hacking needs...

Sometimes I like to compare apples to oranges. (Figuratively) ... They are both fruits, but which one would you eat more? (If taken literally, I'd probably choose apples.)
Maybe it is over-analyzing, but it doesn't mean the information is useless.


The only GS Discord servers with significance are:
Golden Sun Hacking Community
GS Speedrunning
/r/Golden Sun
GS United Nations
Temple of Kraden

Can you believe how small the Golden Sun Community is?

2+2=5 Don't believe me? Those are rounded decimal numbers. Take that, flat earth theorists! :)

Misery

Quote
QuoteWhen I said they're designed to have a cooldown, I was referring to the djinn being put in recovery, effectively preventing you from using that summon again for a number of turns (depending on how djinn are spread across the characters). But if you have enough djinn to use the summon twice, that pretty much doesn't matter. :/
Well, yeah, so my question is... How exactly would our cooldown timer be incremented? Plus 1 for every element level it has? (So if you use a Summon with 4 Mercury, you have to wait 4 rounds to use it again? Maybe even add an additional round by default?)

Yeah, I think cooldown turns = total elemental level requirement of summon would be the best. Logical, straightforward, and means you gotta make those big summons count.

leaf

The idea in the OP seems entirely counterintuitive, and makes no sense from an end-user perspective. Effectively, you're saying that putting something in standby outside of combat is "unequipping" it, but... putting it in standby *in* combat preps a summon? Why? Why are these states called the same thing? Why does the "equipped" status carry over from battle to battle, but their usability for a summon doesn't? If I unleash a djinni in one random battle, then in unleash another djinni of the same element in the next without setting the first one back, why can't I perform a second level summon? Why do I have to manually "re-equip" the djinn between battles?

This is the system you *actually* want:
- players equip djinn outside of combat
-- djinn that are not equipped cannot be used in combat
- in combat, players use djinn to set up summons, temporarily unequipping them
- after combat, all djinn that were used in combat are re-equipped instantly and automatically (i.e. all standby and recovery djinn are set)

This would require a fourth djinn state. That's the only way I can see this working. It's also distinctly... not golden sun.
[spoiler=quotes]
[9:00:50 PM] Randel Peltier: Ok...what did I do last night?
[9:01:19 PM] Kain: Something boring, repetitive, and lasted for about sixty seconds.
---
[10:45:08 AM] Salanewt: But yeah, the elemental phalluses are being... Stroked up by Saturos and co., and the energy will go towards... Mt. Muffin, where the Golden Climax will arise.
[7:28:42 PM] Salanewt: An added bonus is that Isaac and co. were trying to stop Saturos and co. because their beliefs state that Mt. Muffin should remain a virgin.
---
[9:54:21 PM] Randel Peltier: Guess the number in my head an you get to pick what I say. Number between 1-10
[9:54:28 PM] leaf: 11
[9:54:36 PM] Randel Peltier: @#$%!
---
[8:38:13 PM] Randel Peltier: Shes like this queen up on a pedastal that I have yet to court.
[8:38:29 PM] Kain: You've tried courting her.
[8:38:43 PM] leaf: and failed spectacularly
[8:38:44 PM] Randel Peltier: Ive tried...shes the best dating game ever.
---
[12:24:35 AM] Salanewt: I need to find a picture of a naked person to put on the Christmas tree next year.
---
[2:19:06 PM] Zeadra: wait... Rief's a guy???
---
[1:09:57 PM] Zeadra: well if you want to know if its a new effect or something weird, just check GS1, if side step is there maby it is the nimble dodge thing
[1:10:35 PM] Kioll: For once, you've contributed something useful.  o.O[/spoiler]

Misery

Quote from: leaf on 11, February, 2015, 03:51:31 AM
The idea in the OP seems entirely counterintuitive, and makes no sense from an end-user perspective. Effectively, you're saying that putting something in standby outside of combat is "unequipping" it, but... putting it in standby *in* combat preps a summon? Why? Why are these states called the same thing? Why does the "equipped" status carry over from battle to battle, but their usability for a summon doesn't? If I unleash a djinni in one random battle, then in unleash another djinni of the same element in the next without setting the first one back, why can't I perform a second level summon? Why do I have to manually "re-equip" the djinn between battles?
Conceptually, I think of it as this: when you unleash a djinni in battle, it fuels a power source that can be used for summoning. By the time you enter a new battle, the released power would have dissipated. Indeed, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do this prior to a battle, nor is there anything that implies a djinni's ability to be used for summoning should wear off over time. I did highlight this as a drawback; it's not how the system was designed. The only real reason for it is to address the flaws in the system which allow you to benefit from its advantages without suffering the drawbacks, and the idea in the OP is just one way to do this.

"Equipping/unequipping" djinn in the manner you describe does sound like a better way to go about it, since it avoids the inconvenience of having to manually re-set djinn. The fact that you'd have to do that otherwise is the reason I wanted it to be an option in battle; you shouldn't be screwed out of a class just because you forgot to re-set the djinni manually after unleashing it.

QuoteThis would require a fourth djinn state. That's the only way I can see this working. It's also distinctly... not golden sun.
What is and is not "Golden Sun" is highly debatable. When the game introduces djinn, this is the way it presents them - you unleash djinn in battle, then you can use them to summon. Actually requiring the player to do this would cut down the damage over time of summons to a more reasonable level, wheras with summon rushing it's completely blown out of proportions. Based on these things, I'd argue it's closer to how the system was intented to be used.

Rolina

There's also non-summon rush strategies that rely on pre-standby djinn - such as my Buff and Rush.  Summoning Megaera a bunch to provide some damage to the foe as well as give the party quick access to full power won't be possible with this, and it's hardly a "broken" strat.  I'd argue that just dropping the djinn efficacy from 3% down to 2% does the job just fine - prevents summon rushing from working altogether.

My own personal way of handling it, however, is to fundamentally change how summons work - to have them work as 4 turn "guest" characters.  Look at it like this:

[F][J][S][P][g]
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]


You have the four main party members, a slot of guest characters, and a "back row" meant for summons.  They have no HP, DEF, WRD, LUK, or RES stats.  They do have PP, ATK, CST, AGL, and POW stats.  When you summon, the summon shows up in the summon slot behind the character, and acts as a guest character.  They cannot be targeted, but if the summoner goes down, the summon poofs away.  Only one instance of a summon can be on the field at one time, so if one person summons Flora, nobody on either side of the field can summon her.  However, that also means that if there's a summoner on the enemy side of the field, they can effectively lock you out of a summon as well.  A summon will last four turns, or until the summoner is KOed.  If the summon is inflicted with a Djinn Seal, they cannot summon - but it will not dispel a summon already in play.  While a summon is in play, the djinn used to summon it will be in a new phase - Active.  This would mean the four phases are:  Set → Standby → Active → Recovery.  The elemental boost that characters receive is half that of the original GS values, and occurs when the summon ends after its fourth turn.

It is, however, quite unlike how GS handles summons, and I fully expect some people to dislike it.

Luna_blade

Quote from: Misery on 10, February, 2015, 06:40:14 PM
There are some things certain bosses do to make summon rushing harder or riskier. The worst obstacle is probably Guard Aura. Dullahan actually has a ton of things that make him especially dangerous for summon users, but he can still be taken down easily by spamming Eclipse and Daedalus and sacrificing the front party, if you just get lucky. Just use barrier djinn to negate the damage, and/or Lull/Ground/Petra to make him lose turns.
Dullahan gets:
-Extremely high elemental resistances to cut down summon damage
-Break, prevents you from taking advantage of the elemental power boost from summons
-Haunt, may kill any character doing 4x or more of their own HP in damage (usually the case), although it doesn't stop them from doing damage
-"Formina Sage", generally instant death if you don't have the defense bonus of a higher tier class
-Charon, just kills a lot of people easily
-Djinn Storm, although it really doesn't make much difference compared to hitting a fully classed character, it still stops summons

I think the fact that summons take him down so easily in spite of all these things is a testament to how powerful they are.

Doom Dragon has just about the best natural defense there is against summons, barring full immunity (doesn't exist). Since its HP is split in 3 parts, summons do less of his total HP in damage. You also don't know when Guard Aura will come, and he has Djinn Blast and ultimately, Djinn Storm. You can still do pretty well against it with summons though, by using just a single character for summoning and bringing in "djinn batteries" from the back row.

Star Magician also gets Guard Aura, though again, there's nothing stopping you from bringing in those djinn batteries as soon as the Guardian Balls are out of sight. I'm pretty sure 5 rounds of Ulysses (10 Mars + 10 Mercury) will take him out with no damage from anything else, unless you let him heal. Ulysses may also stop the balls from acting.

But I suppose you could argue that you need to know what you're doing for these things, and the easy wins are rewards for coming up with the best summoning setups. I don't actually think summons are quite as broken as some people make them out to be, although the fact that summon rushing is nearly always the best strategy (and still a great option when it's not the best) kind of irks me.
Well I think it is pretty broken early in the game. Late game however... I guess it depends on what your level is. I fought Dullahan at level 60 summon-rushing him first turn was basically impossible for me. I actually had to use summons strategicly to take him down. Deadbeard in GS1 destroyed your party if you tried to summon rush him first turn.

I just want point out that summons should be sorta changed in a manner that they cannot be easily abused early in the game.
"Hear the sounds and melodies
Of rilets flowing down
They're the verlasting songs
Whispering all the time
As a warning that behind some rocks
There's a rigid grap even
Oreads fear the tread"

Misery

Quote from: Rolina on 11, February, 2015, 10:20:46 PM
There's also non-summon rush strategies that rely on pre-standby djinn - such as my Buff and Rush.  Summoning Megaera a bunch to provide some damage to the foe as well as give the party quick access to full power won't be possible with this, and it's hardly a "broken" strat.  I'd argue that just dropping the djinn efficacy from 3% down to 2% does the job just fine - prevents summon rushing from working altogether.

Yeah, I tend to drop a few smaller summons at the start of battles too. I especially like summoning Neptune or Boreas with healers for the elemental power boost, and by spreading djinn out across the characters, the recovery time becomes much shorter. The thing is, I'd still do this even if I had to set it up in battle. Summons are still good, as they let you passively recover djinn with a single action, and you get the elemental power boost on top of the damage.

As for your Megaera barrage, no day of the week would I call it "broken". However, consider this: let's say you have an average of about 80 Mars power across your party, and the boss has 100 resistance to it, 4 summons of Megaera will take away about 1/5 of its total health and give +50% attack to the party. I don't think it's unreasonable to spend 2 turns of djinn effects to set up for it. Or you could do Forge, unleash another Mars and 2 Jupiter, and you'd have the attack power boost and 2 Megaeras by turn 2. So not a broken stat, but this system doesn't break that strat either.

I generally agree on 2% per djinn as a fairly non-invasive nerf to summons. The only problem is that it makes them considerably less valuable as a source of damage when you're not summon rushing, making them essentially only good for their secondary effects. I'd never set up anything higher than level 4 for 2% per djinni when there are other ways to do more damage with fewer restrictions and less risk, it's simply not worth it. Unless you can get it right from turn 1, that is. What I'm trying to do here is to turn manually setting up summons into a more viable playstyle.

When you can't summon rush, I think it might actually be a good idea to make HP% damage per djinn scale with the total level of the summon, since higher level summons put higher restrictions on classes and character actions to set up. Thanks to the simple summons patch, this wouldn't require an actual formula in the game.

I recall your system with summons as guest characters, and I think it's very nice. It makes sense, it helps immersion, and it turns summons into something more than just another form of attack. However, there's little room for implementing it in these games.

Quote from: Luna_blade on 12, February, 2015, 12:56:19 PM
Well I think it is pretty broken early in the game. Late game however... I guess it depends on what your level is. I fought Dullahan at level 60 summon-rushing him first turn was basically impossible for me. I actually had to use summons strategicly to take him down. Deadbeard in GS1 destroyed your party if you tried to summon rush him first turn.

I just want point out that summons should be sorta changed in a manner that they cannot be easily abused early in the game.
When you say early game, about what point are you referring to? Level 1-2 summons are never particularly powerful, although I remember in GS1, level 3 summons could take out the statues in Altin mines before they got a single turn...

When I was scouting out my route for the GS stream I could take Dullahan out with summons fairly consistently with a level ~35 party. I was less lucky during the actual stream, as it took a few tries, but if you take the time to get agility and elemental power boosting gear, it's practically a guaranteed win even at low levels. You don't even need to summon rush at level 60, at that point you have enough raw stats that you can just beat him up.

Rolina

I know - my approach can't really be edited in.  It's also not much of a balancing approach - it's completely a reaction to my overall dislike of how JRPGs do summons. XD

MattCustovGaming

As stupid as an idea as this is, you could just up the cost of summons, which in turn would lead to less summons.
EG: Ulysses is 2 :MarsSet: and 2 :MercurySet: but if you raised it to 4 :MarsSet: and 4 :MercurySet: it would technically be possible to rush with, but not as easy to
Karis and Matthew is now happening

leaf

Raising summon cost would only go so far. The concept behind summon rushing is to place almost all djinn into standby before the battle, so it just means that the same characters would have access to fewer summons. While it might slow down a summon rush, it would also adversely impact setting up a summon by using djinn one by one, which is fine as is.

In other news, after playing with summons on caledor's hack, nerfing the hp% damage down to 2% doesn't feel that bad at all. Summons still feel impactful and damaging, although that's probably at least in part because of the raised base damages.
[spoiler=quotes]
[9:00:50 PM] Randel Peltier: Ok...what did I do last night?
[9:01:19 PM] Kain: Something boring, repetitive, and lasted for about sixty seconds.
---
[10:45:08 AM] Salanewt: But yeah, the elemental phalluses are being... Stroked up by Saturos and co., and the energy will go towards... Mt. Muffin, where the Golden Climax will arise.
[7:28:42 PM] Salanewt: An added bonus is that Isaac and co. were trying to stop Saturos and co. because their beliefs state that Mt. Muffin should remain a virgin.
---
[9:54:21 PM] Randel Peltier: Guess the number in my head an you get to pick what I say. Number between 1-10
[9:54:28 PM] leaf: 11
[9:54:36 PM] Randel Peltier: @#$%!
---
[8:38:13 PM] Randel Peltier: Shes like this queen up on a pedastal that I have yet to court.
[8:38:29 PM] Kain: You've tried courting her.
[8:38:43 PM] leaf: and failed spectacularly
[8:38:44 PM] Randel Peltier: Ive tried...shes the best dating game ever.
---
[12:24:35 AM] Salanewt: I need to find a picture of a naked person to put on the Christmas tree next year.
---
[2:19:06 PM] Zeadra: wait... Rief's a guy???
---
[1:09:57 PM] Zeadra: well if you want to know if its a new effect or something weird, just check GS1, if side step is there maby it is the nimble dodge thing
[1:10:35 PM] Kioll: For once, you've contributed something useful.  o.O[/spoiler]