Buff for Summoners

from Elemental Forums

hi, after i bought the dead world dlc i tried for the first time the summoner path, but this seems to be vastly UP in terms of a more spell damage approach. now i ask myself why can't i summon more than one of each type? i mean this can be easily balanced by mana upkeep, why restrict it by only ONE per type. why can i just summon ONE shadow warg for example. now granted, shadow wargs are quite decent early on, but at least increase the number of summons per type for further summons in the skill tree or make it an additional summoner trait you can unlock!

why bother and specialize in summoning if you can only summon one of each type? thats quite boring and feels very "unpowerful" if you have focused solely on the summoning branch.

now i understand that summoning strong units later on in the game can become quite OP but then you could also increase the upkeep of those summons.

 

opinions?

23,193 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


I agree. It would seem logical that the stronger summons would have upkeeps greater than 1 man per turn.

Also, the upkeep status in the unit's properties should also include mana upkeeps in addition to gildar. (Fame too for the that matter in case future heros exist that require consist Fame upkeep to stick around)

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

yes but my general gist is that you can raise the upkeep but use this to balance the fact that PLEASE let us have more than one summon per type (eg several fire elemental etc.). if someone wants to go the summoner road then why not give him the option to build an army of fire elementals, or at least more than one! they only have to be balanced with mana upkeep. every other fantasy 4x does that, otherwise the summoning tree is just severely gimped.

 

that and the borderline undead race is my biggest gripe atm :/. besides these two gripes, i actually prefer to play FE:LH atm over AoW3.

the game has so much potential, but in some corners its just unbalanced. sorry if this is some kinda rant but it can't be that you buy a (quite interesting) race per dlc and they are gimping around with lvl1 cities. sure they have no upkeep cost, but having lvl1 cities ain't fun.

 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I am not sure that OP makes a good argument. Actually, he makes one argument - summoners are up. The second argument, it is boring to have just one type of summon per summoner is not really an argument, but rather a preference. 

Regarding summoner being underpower - first of all, it is hard to speak about anything being underpower in a single player game. All default races are winnable - i beat game on ridiculous iron man mode with each of them, so it is doable. Some are harder than others - I think it is good. I am not really sure, while summoner should be as powerful as mage, or why all the races and heroes have to be exactly balanced in difficulty. I actually like it that with some races you have to think harder to win, and to use their advantages well. Saying that it is more logical to have more summons than just one, or that in other games they have it, is not really an argument either - it is not logical at all, nor does this game need to have all options other games have. 

Regarding the preferences - "it is boring to play summoner with one summon" and "undead with 1 lvl cities" - well, those are subjective. I for change, enjoy this way more. I have my own personal preferences - I would love to have bigger armies (like 20 troops/army). Those personal preferences can be meet if their is unlimited budget team behind game (so they can include hundred of options - e.g. 1/2/5/unlimited summons per summoner), or by a game being modable. And this game has mods, maybe you can find something that fits your preferences better.  

  

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

well yes, i posted this with my personal reasons because i wanted some opinions about the topic. in that case i wasn't assuming a wave of agreeing posts.

 

in terms of the dead i think that when they go the road of 1 pop per kill then why just humans and not to a certain degree also every other mob, maybe just .5, but at least something.

yesterday i started as altar because i wanted to see how the AI handles the dead. at around season 70 i had only one city which was 70% on the way to lvl 7. only one city duo to bad starting location and too high lvl monster blocking my way to more prosperous grounds. yet as i was encountering one of the undead, my strategic value was 18 and their was 6. they were flooding me with tribute payments. the dead which should be an evil and powerful race are just the bullied kids which throws their lunch money willingly at the first one they encounter. they can't offer any challenge. what should i do now? disable the dlc or add races personally when i want a challenging game with strong AI players? that shouldn't be the solution. especially after you pay extra for the particular race.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

now i ask myself why can't i summon more than one of each type?

 

If you're looking for more summoning you might like to try this mod:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/446891

 

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


If summons are to be mulit-castable, I think in addition to the increased mana upkeep, you would also require casting delay for the stronger summons.

 

You are correct in that the AI does not know how to play the undead well. I was really hoping SD would take the gaming community serious on this point and introduce some positive changes that mods have brought out to help make the undead more challenging when used by the AI.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GFireflyE, reply 6
If summons are to be mulit-castable, I think in addition to the increased mana upkeep, you would also require casting delay for the stronger summons.

I assume you mean in tactical?   With my Demons and Wizards mod (link above - plug plug), it uses a cooldown rather than delay for the same summons, greater the summons the longer the cooldown... so you can for example summon multiple Fire Elementals but there is a 4 turn cooldown for them by default.   And there is a couple of abilities in the (new) Summoner Path that can reduce the cooldown somewhat.

But I agree a delay (longer cast time) would certainly be another good way to go though.  In general I actually would like to see a few more spells that have a multi turn cast time... and things like being attacked interrupt the spell.  I think the whole dispel and spell disruption type mechanic is a bit underutilized across the board... but that's a whole nother thing.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the undead being basically a faction to be played by a player only is not going to change. Stardock will not put that much money just to optimize AI for one faction. They should however be clear that AI can't play undead, otherwise, people can and will feel cheated. 

The game now is in a completed stated, there will be no more revolutions, just polishing and adding a new content - all the money goes to the next version of a game. I do not mind actually to have dlc with the factions that introduced new, original and radically different mechanics - but only for players. I preferred that than nothing, and I know that realistically speaking upgrades to AI require enormous amount of work and coding. 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting bpalczewski, reply 8

I think the undead being basically a faction to be played by a player only is going to change. Stardock will not put that much money just to optimize AI for one faction. They should however be clear that AI can't play undead, otherwise, people can and will feel cheated. 

The game now is in a completed stated, there will be no more revolutions, just polishing and adding a new content - all the money goes to the next version of a game. I do not mind actually to have dlc with the factions that introduced new, original and radically different mechanics - but only for players. I preferred that than nothing, and I know that realistically speaking upgrades to AI require enormous amount of work and coding. 

 

honestly i don't care how much stardoch has to pay or invest in terms of manhours to make the dead playable by the AI. you bought the dead world dlc with extra money and the AI is piss poor (sorry) with them! if i buy something then usually i assume that it will work as intended!

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Glanced at the thread title and thought I saw "Buffy Summers".  Heh.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting bpalczewski, reply 12


Quoting Primal_Savage, reply 9Maybe, maybe not.

 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/452256/page/7/#162

 

Exactly. LH 2.0 is not an update, it is a new game, second in the series. You will have to pay for it.   

 

Legendary Heroes 2.0

Also, as some of you may have heard, Legendary Heroes 2.0 has been approved and budgeted. This will be a free update of some significance. 

 

<--- read again ;).

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Ups, sorry - my bad. I got confused, i thought link points toward post in which Frog plans new game for 2015. 

Anyway, this post again shows "polishing" and not revolution. As far as I remember one person works now on LH 2, whereas whole team moved to a new game in LH world (no tech trees, sov casting everyone, sov that does not move from capital etc.)  

In Lh 2.0 those are proposed changes: 

Other things on our “want” list for Legendary Heroes 2.0 include:

  • Updated diplomacy options to help build longer term relations
  • More performance boosts (we’re working on redoing the way trees are handled)
  • Some tweaks to the way magic is done
  • More effective alliance handling (this is something we really want to see)
  • Some changes to the way the Spell of Making is handled

 

I do not see one revolution here ..... Well, the trees will be redone, I can admit to be wrong on this one :) 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Returning to summons ).

For some reason their levelling do not provide descent bonuses. If you sommon lvl 3 monster and level it up to 7, you will get much weaker creature then if you summon it lvl.7 in the first place. On experience levelling they don't get damage and defence, while they do get it when spawned with high level. That is odd to me. And with trained units this is ok, because they get a lot more HP per level and you can upgrade their defence and weaponry.

 

 

 

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting geniusisme, reply 15

Returning to summons ).

For some reason their levelling do not provide descent bonuses. If you sommon lvl 3 monster and level it up to 7, you will get much weaker creature then if you summon it lvl.7 in the first place. On experience levelling they don't get damage and defence, while they do get it when spawned with high level. That is odd to me. And with trained units this is ok, because they get a lot more HP per level and you can upgrade their defence and weaponry.

 

 

 

that sounds more like a bug than design decision. but hey, there are still a bunch of bugs. my air elemental for example doesn't show the lightning storm while attacking and its also clipping his spear attack (when attack two units).

now and then i also get some graphic glitches. well after playing with my air elemental i don't think anymore than summoners are that much UP. but its kinda sad that my air elemental is far stronger than my agni, which is two steps further in the summoner tree.