So this is my suggestion/proposals; basing on other games balances and gaming experiences most summoning heroes, pet users on pvp they are given these penalties:
1. 50%-75% reduction on effect/stats of pet and skill damage.
This would limit the use of summoners for their abused damage. But not rendering them hopeless/obsolete like svens chances of dragons multiple attacks based on rng. Might also gave way to other units effect and might be used again such as the ninjas, kill/refresh and nadias, kill/attack.
2. Increased cd on summoning the pet by 150%. Svens 3 turns, talisa 6 turns and so on.
I think that would sufficiently be good and wont upset the game balance, as for the turns of pets, if this was applied it would only be a strategical turn delaying for other units, with other units being able to easily kill pets not as hard and not giving the bonus turns and with effective effects at least we would be able to see more of the other units on the arena like nadia, ninjas.
Re: Summoners On The Rise
Hi Dev,
Thanks for noticing the unbalancing of the new Summoner Class. I hope that in the future, upon any release of new heroes, please review their PvP potential as this will create a deficit for PvPers between those who are able to get Summoners and those who are using their own unique squad. When you decided that some balances need to take place, for those who have invested heavily in Summoners, this will be the reactions you get "Don't nerf the summoners so much" etc kind of comment or devalue the Summoners so much it's unplayable.
Please understand that because of this Summoners, all the other classes are pretty much useless now compare to the Summoners. So try to look on both side instead of just the Summoners.
As you've witness and seen for yourself, the Summoners can completely dominate the PvP one sided-ly as oppose to the Trigger Team which can still be dealt with marginally. I'm sure that the developers are creating a game whereby each individual class/heroes can shine in their respective role and not a team of Summoners in PvP without any real need of Defenders, Healers or Rogues. (2 Talissas, 1 Sven/Matilda paired with an Inquisitor and a Defender or a Ronan - This is the current meta).
The suggestions that the team has proposed are relatively good but there are still improvement as noted by the public. But before that, may I suggest you to not just look at the pets... The whole thing about the Summoners is the ISSUE itself. Their aura (Sven, Talissa and Matilda), their pets skill (the dragon's 1 hit or trigger with Sven and specters' AOE skill in just.. 1 turn), their mechanics (cool downs and uses of pet) are heavily exploited. It seriously doesn't help the other classes at all. Yes we all agree the pets are very powerful, but the cause of it isn't it because of the Team Poison or the OP triggering (A Sven with a Vampire Rune + his dragon) make himself an undying berserker?
The whole thing about the Summoner is that it introduce a new hero equivalent into the play. It's not a 5 VS 5 but a 6 VS 5 etc.
-5 points for killing a pet - is really really not worth it in my honest opinion. Compare the difference between a possibility of killing a player next turn vs killing a pet for 5 points, many summoners will no doubt still summon their pets without hesitation because it's only 5 points. It might seem a lot yes, but 5 points as a decoy is a pretty hefty turn for the opposition.
Reasoning : The only way to deter a summoner from summoning is the penalty.
What penalty am I referring to? For a Berserker class, you realise that all Berserkers have a set back when casting their skills (Vincent inflict Poison himself for 2 turns, Leah will have a def stats debuff applied to herself etc), but because great power comes with great responsibilities, that's why people will consider the risk of casting their skills. Is there a risk for the summoners to cast a skill when the only set back is a... -5 points in return for a pet's skills (which are normally really really pain), a +1 turn for themselves (because the opponent has to kill this pet for their 1 turn)? I don't see how this will shorten our gameplay.
May I suggest a cost for summoning the pet? Say for example, -5 arena points from their own. Now does the summoner think twice about summoning? This will create a total lead point of +10 upon killing a pet. If you want the user to kill the pet, make it worthwhile their effort and also, in a way make it a decision for the one summoning. If a pet can take down a hero while they are alive, that's easily a +15 (vs a 5 points for killing a pet) for the summoner. This is to say, the pet is worth a hero but killing it doesn't (not to mention, you let the summoner earn +1 turn).
So what makes the user want to kill the pet in exchange of losing a turn for a 5 points when the next turn could be the end of his own team (when either Ronan/Inquisitor cast their skills)? They would rather try every possibility to kill the summoners (which is more often than not a Hercules/Kratos super tank with a paladin absorbing damage for them) hoping to take down both at the same time.
Pet Death -20% max HP of summoner - This will no doubt hurt the summoner. Yes, but considering killing a pet vs a hero again.
Reasoning : The main purpose of a pet in the current PvP scenario is it's a decoy, it helps to waste a turn, and it can almost.. 1 hit KO a player or create devastating damage to an entire team. If there's 3 summoners in the opposite team, they can take turn to lose their HP, there won't be any real progress made for the other team if there's another Inquisitor or Bishop(in the Summoner's team) in the play while the user is trying to kill a single pet before it wreck the entire team.
-2O% of the summoner's MAX HP vs killing the summoner directly, obviously killing the latter is better right (which is better because it kills 2 birds with 1 stone)? But can they kill it or risk losing a turn to the pet, it depends. Wasting 1 turn to kill a pet to give the opposite team a chance for their Inquisitor to cast that invulnerability for 2 turns is still a goner for the user.
Reduce Arena pet limit to 2 - It's good. Better than 3 I guess. But if I'm using two summoners, I can still keep do a lot of things with it. But for now, this is still a good restriction. However, I wish to suggest that in any 1 match, the maximum no. of pet summons the entire team get to be limited (say maybe just 2 per match). Meaning after 2 pet summons regardless of which summoner, they can't summon anymore. Yes, this is to say, the summoners will be a complete waste after 2 pet summons. Although heavy, but summoning 2 pets is already very good. I mean, most of the team can't last more than 2 turns against 2 pets (Take 2 Talissa for example, poison and fire, how long can the player last when their own skills like shield or heal aren't even up). This itself makes killing the pets some meaning because it won't spawn again (the two TLS's summons is still a problem though).
The developers always says those changes (alternate ideas) will render summoners completely useless or devalued to the point of unusable, try looking at other classes such as a Kiera Elementalist which is almost a non-existence relic in the scene or a Cybella's Sharpshooter or a Royal Huntsman (sounds fancy IKR but what's the point?). Are we doing any justice for these classes or heroes?
Pet moving will not trigger CD on your team - I don't think any user will bother to really move a pet at all.
Reasoning : The only time when they move is when they are so sure that moving it doesn't even hurt them. And the reason why this isn't a good implementation is because pets are there to waste the opponent's turn, a blocker (to increase the defense of backline heroes or tank that 1/2 hits from Rogue's chain attack) and for their skills. When a pet attack it will not cool down the moves of the team. Supposedly I place a Sven's pet Dragon within his aura. They alone trigger harder than a Archer Trigger team, we don't have to wait for our turn at all because the pets can immediately attack and we can't retaliate unless we do something about his 2 turns or kill him before that.
My suggestions:
A cool down freeze upon pet's death for the summoner only.
Meaning if a user kill a pet, the summoner will be stunned for a turn and for that 1 turn (to cry for her pet or something), her or his skill timer doesn't drop. This itself is an extreme disadvantage for the summoner but that is if all the other mentioned ideas are not implemented. This is to say, the death of the pet and summoner share an affinity, need an example?
Try Google this : Seryu Ubiquitous and watch Akame ga Kill! Episode 19 to understand what does the affinity between PET AND SUMMONER means.
Upon summoning of pet, 1 random opponent's unit will have a -1 cool down. Fair isn't it? It's not the entire team, only 1 RANDOM opponent earn it. To add it, this itself can be a gamble for the summoner but again, my suggestions are in the scenario if none of the above are being implemented since we are still testing for options. For changes, it doesn't have to be all, it can be just 1 that's being implemented, or a few, if not, all of them being implemented.
Upon summoning of pet, 1 random opponent's unit will have a free turn. This is different from the above mentioned one because a cool down and an action turn is two different thing.
For every pet a team summon, opponent tile's capture point increase accordingly. This itself gives credit to people who can try to aim for tile captures. Meaning, if the opponent summon 1 pet, the opposite team tile's setter can earn points faster, say maybe +4 (side) per turn and +7 for middle (idk how much to tweak but you may want to try different points) and maybe a +6 (side) per turn and +9 for middle when two pets are on the field. *Doesn't apply to pet who stand on tiles*
For every pet killed by a ROGUE(Class specific), team gain +X % CRIT / HP / ATK / MAG / DEF / WHATEVER. This is an effort to increase the value of other classes without hurting the summoner class too much, say for example, a 4% increase to opponents' team def. It also helps to boost the usage of other classes as well. You could do the same for other classes, if not, it can be job specific for example:
For every pet killed by a SHARPSHOOTER (job specific), team gain + 1 turn (okay this might be OP, but there's room for opinions) OR
For every pet on the field, stunned/silenced/debuff effect inflicted by a SAMURAI (job specific), effects will be 1.25 x for 1 pet, 1.5 x for 2 pets OR
For every pet on the field, healing effects by ARCHBISHOP (Job Specific or maybe Priest and above etc) will be 1.15 x for 1 pet, 1.25 x for 2 pets OR
For every pet on the field, +1 AURA direction for MIND WARDER (Job Specific). Can we have a diagonal aura passive?
Some of this may sound ridiculously OP for the other team, but this create a leveled playing field if we have summoners on both team. It will also encourage users to still try the summoner as the summoners' stand of using the pet won't be neglected because these does not reduce a summoner's potential but to compensate the opponent.
Thanks for noticing the unbalancing of the new Summoner Class. I hope that in the future, upon any release of new heroes, please review their PvP potential as this will create a deficit for PvPers between those who are able to get Summoners and those who are using their own unique squad. When you decided that some balances need to take place, for those who have invested heavily in Summoners, this will be the reactions you get "Don't nerf the summoners so much" etc kind of comment or devalue the Summoners so much it's unplayable.
Please understand that because of this Summoners, all the other classes are pretty much useless now compare to the Summoners. So try to look on both side instead of just the Summoners.
As you've witness and seen for yourself, the Summoners can completely dominate the PvP one sided-ly as oppose to the Trigger Team which can still be dealt with marginally. I'm sure that the developers are creating a game whereby each individual class/heroes can shine in their respective role and not a team of Summoners in PvP without any real need of Defenders, Healers or Rogues. (2 Talissas, 1 Sven/Matilda paired with an Inquisitor and a Defender or a Ronan - This is the current meta).
The suggestions that the team has proposed are relatively good but there are still improvement as noted by the public. But before that, may I suggest you to not just look at the pets... The whole thing about the Summoners is the ISSUE itself. Their aura (Sven, Talissa and Matilda), their pets skill (the dragon's 1 hit or trigger with Sven and specters' AOE skill in just.. 1 turn), their mechanics (cool downs and uses of pet) are heavily exploited. It seriously doesn't help the other classes at all. Yes we all agree the pets are very powerful, but the cause of it isn't it because of the Team Poison or the OP triggering (A Sven with a Vampire Rune + his dragon) make himself an undying berserker?
The whole thing about the Summoner is that it introduce a new hero equivalent into the play. It's not a 5 VS 5 but a 6 VS 5 etc.
-5 points for killing a pet - is really really not worth it in my honest opinion. Compare the difference between a possibility of killing a player next turn vs killing a pet for 5 points, many summoners will no doubt still summon their pets without hesitation because it's only 5 points. It might seem a lot yes, but 5 points as a decoy is a pretty hefty turn for the opposition.
Reasoning : The only way to deter a summoner from summoning is the penalty.
What penalty am I referring to? For a Berserker class, you realise that all Berserkers have a set back when casting their skills (Vincent inflict Poison himself for 2 turns, Leah will have a def stats debuff applied to herself etc), but because great power comes with great responsibilities, that's why people will consider the risk of casting their skills. Is there a risk for the summoners to cast a skill when the only set back is a... -5 points in return for a pet's skills (which are normally really really pain), a +1 turn for themselves (because the opponent has to kill this pet for their 1 turn)? I don't see how this will shorten our gameplay.
May I suggest a cost for summoning the pet? Say for example, -5 arena points from their own. Now does the summoner think twice about summoning? This will create a total lead point of +10 upon killing a pet. If you want the user to kill the pet, make it worthwhile their effort and also, in a way make it a decision for the one summoning. If a pet can take down a hero while they are alive, that's easily a +15 (vs a 5 points for killing a pet) for the summoner. This is to say, the pet is worth a hero but killing it doesn't (not to mention, you let the summoner earn +1 turn).
So what makes the user want to kill the pet in exchange of losing a turn for a 5 points when the next turn could be the end of his own team (when either Ronan/Inquisitor cast their skills)? They would rather try every possibility to kill the summoners (which is more often than not a Hercules/Kratos super tank with a paladin absorbing damage for them) hoping to take down both at the same time.
Pet Death -20% max HP of summoner - This will no doubt hurt the summoner. Yes, but considering killing a pet vs a hero again.
Reasoning : The main purpose of a pet in the current PvP scenario is it's a decoy, it helps to waste a turn, and it can almost.. 1 hit KO a player or create devastating damage to an entire team. If there's 3 summoners in the opposite team, they can take turn to lose their HP, there won't be any real progress made for the other team if there's another Inquisitor or Bishop(in the Summoner's team) in the play while the user is trying to kill a single pet before it wreck the entire team.
-2O% of the summoner's MAX HP vs killing the summoner directly, obviously killing the latter is better right (which is better because it kills 2 birds with 1 stone)? But can they kill it or risk losing a turn to the pet, it depends. Wasting 1 turn to kill a pet to give the opposite team a chance for their Inquisitor to cast that invulnerability for 2 turns is still a goner for the user.
Reduce Arena pet limit to 2 - It's good. Better than 3 I guess. But if I'm using two summoners, I can still keep do a lot of things with it. But for now, this is still a good restriction. However, I wish to suggest that in any 1 match, the maximum no. of pet summons the entire team get to be limited (say maybe just 2 per match). Meaning after 2 pet summons regardless of which summoner, they can't summon anymore. Yes, this is to say, the summoners will be a complete waste after 2 pet summons. Although heavy, but summoning 2 pets is already very good. I mean, most of the team can't last more than 2 turns against 2 pets (Take 2 Talissa for example, poison and fire, how long can the player last when their own skills like shield or heal aren't even up). This itself makes killing the pets some meaning because it won't spawn again (the two TLS's summons is still a problem though).
The developers always says those changes (alternate ideas) will render summoners completely useless or devalued to the point of unusable, try looking at other classes such as a Kiera Elementalist which is almost a non-existence relic in the scene or a Cybella's Sharpshooter or a Royal Huntsman (sounds fancy IKR but what's the point?). Are we doing any justice for these classes or heroes?
Pet moving will not trigger CD on your team - I don't think any user will bother to really move a pet at all.
Reasoning : The only time when they move is when they are so sure that moving it doesn't even hurt them. And the reason why this isn't a good implementation is because pets are there to waste the opponent's turn, a blocker (to increase the defense of backline heroes or tank that 1/2 hits from Rogue's chain attack) and for their skills. When a pet attack it will not cool down the moves of the team. Supposedly I place a Sven's pet Dragon within his aura. They alone trigger harder than a Archer Trigger team, we don't have to wait for our turn at all because the pets can immediately attack and we can't retaliate unless we do something about his 2 turns or kill him before that.
My suggestions:
A cool down freeze upon pet's death for the summoner only.
Meaning if a user kill a pet, the summoner will be stunned for a turn and for that 1 turn (to cry for her pet or something), her or his skill timer doesn't drop. This itself is an extreme disadvantage for the summoner but that is if all the other mentioned ideas are not implemented. This is to say, the death of the pet and summoner share an affinity, need an example?
Try Google this : Seryu Ubiquitous and watch Akame ga Kill! Episode 19 to understand what does the affinity between PET AND SUMMONER means.
Upon summoning of pet, 1 random opponent's unit will have a -1 cool down. Fair isn't it? It's not the entire team, only 1 RANDOM opponent earn it. To add it, this itself can be a gamble for the summoner but again, my suggestions are in the scenario if none of the above are being implemented since we are still testing for options. For changes, it doesn't have to be all, it can be just 1 that's being implemented, or a few, if not, all of them being implemented.
Upon summoning of pet, 1 random opponent's unit will have a free turn. This is different from the above mentioned one because a cool down and an action turn is two different thing.
For every pet a team summon, opponent tile's capture point increase accordingly. This itself gives credit to people who can try to aim for tile captures. Meaning, if the opponent summon 1 pet, the opposite team tile's setter can earn points faster, say maybe +4 (side) per turn and +7 for middle (idk how much to tweak but you may want to try different points) and maybe a +6 (side) per turn and +9 for middle when two pets are on the field. *Doesn't apply to pet who stand on tiles*
For every pet killed by a ROGUE(Class specific), team gain +X % CRIT / HP / ATK / MAG / DEF / WHATEVER. This is an effort to increase the value of other classes without hurting the summoner class too much, say for example, a 4% increase to opponents' team def. It also helps to boost the usage of other classes as well. You could do the same for other classes, if not, it can be job specific for example:
For every pet killed by a SHARPSHOOTER (job specific), team gain + 1 turn (okay this might be OP, but there's room for opinions) OR
For every pet on the field, stunned/silenced/debuff effect inflicted by a SAMURAI (job specific), effects will be 1.25 x for 1 pet, 1.5 x for 2 pets OR
For every pet on the field, healing effects by ARCHBISHOP (Job Specific or maybe Priest and above etc) will be 1.15 x for 1 pet, 1.25 x for 2 pets OR
For every pet on the field, +1 AURA direction for MIND WARDER (Job Specific). Can we have a diagonal aura passive?
Some of this may sound ridiculously OP for the other team, but this create a leveled playing field if we have summoners on both team. It will also encourage users to still try the summoner as the summoners' stand of using the pet won't be neglected because these does not reduce a summoner's potential but to compensate the opponent.
Re: Summoners On The Rise
Just thought of a relatively elegant solution to the issue of summoner pet turns. I think the issues surrounding summoner tempo stems from the requirement that you use integers to denote cooldowns and buff durations.
You should be using either floating point or rational numbers. If you have 7 units, then the amount each cooldown ticks should be 5/7 instead of 1. The reason It's almost as if having summoned units allows the rest of the team to move in a separate frame of reference from the enemy team, where the team with extra units experiences dilated time (Suddenly Ronan can cast Chronos Distortion before Faye can shield up even though Ronan has longer cooldown) is because cooldowns tick down by 1 instead of 5/7.
This is the formula: constant / teamsize
The constant is just the standard team size of 5.
This formula depends on the principle that in the time that 5 people in one team can move, 4 people on the other team can move, this is the same for 5v3, 5v2, 5v1 and so on. The amount of 'real time' consumed by each team should be the same and independent of team size.
Naturally this should also be applied to buff/debuff duration ticks. Healing and damage over time amounts should also be scaled by this number. In one swoop we should solve cool down tempo and dot and hot tempo and buff tempo, without having to resort to a special category for summoned units.
Also according to this principle we can observe that teams with less than 5 units are unfairly penalised against teams with 5 or more, since according to the formula, their cooldowns should then be ticking down by greater than 1 tick, but are presently not.
Other suggestions:
Once summoner tempo is fixed, we can move on to other issues. I think besides tweaking their power levels, we could also give them some counter play options.
I think maybe letting dispel effects damage summoned units could also be considered. This could give some utility to the underused Holy Defender class of Victoria and Darrion in arena, if we allow their skills to dispel summoned units. Perhaps we could even allow the taunt effect from guardian units to control summoned units, forcing them to attack the guardian who used the taunt.
Besides adding counter play, this is also lore friendly as Paladins or Holy Knights have always been known in fantasy to have tools for dealing with daemons and otherworldly beings.
You should be using either floating point or rational numbers. If you have 7 units, then the amount each cooldown ticks should be 5/7 instead of 1. The reason It's almost as if having summoned units allows the rest of the team to move in a separate frame of reference from the enemy team, where the team with extra units experiences dilated time (Suddenly Ronan can cast Chronos Distortion before Faye can shield up even though Ronan has longer cooldown) is because cooldowns tick down by 1 instead of 5/7.
This is the formula: constant / teamsize
The constant is just the standard team size of 5.
This formula depends on the principle that in the time that 5 people in one team can move, 4 people on the other team can move, this is the same for 5v3, 5v2, 5v1 and so on. The amount of 'real time' consumed by each team should be the same and independent of team size.
Naturally this should also be applied to buff/debuff duration ticks. Healing and damage over time amounts should also be scaled by this number. In one swoop we should solve cool down tempo and dot and hot tempo and buff tempo, without having to resort to a special category for summoned units.
Also according to this principle we can observe that teams with less than 5 units are unfairly penalised against teams with 5 or more, since according to the formula, their cooldowns should then be ticking down by greater than 1 tick, but are presently not.
Other suggestions:
Once summoner tempo is fixed, we can move on to other issues. I think besides tweaking their power levels, we could also give them some counter play options.
I think maybe letting dispel effects damage summoned units could also be considered. This could give some utility to the underused Holy Defender class of Victoria and Darrion in arena, if we allow their skills to dispel summoned units. Perhaps we could even allow the taunt effect from guardian units to control summoned units, forcing them to attack the guardian who used the taunt.
Besides adding counter play, this is also lore friendly as Paladins or Holy Knights have always been known in fantasy to have tools for dealing with daemons and otherworldly beings.
