The balancing of puppets

[Imuratep]

We all know that puppets with Keelyn are broken, more than anything. Gibbon with any level III summon spell and you have 6 units every turn (strictly speaking 3 turns after you got her) In this phase she is unbeatable. And if you give Gibbon Twincast you can conquer an whole continent without any problems. In the late game it is not much better 4 Liches +4 Archmages --> 24 puppets with 72 servants.
On the other hand for Perpentach puppets are quite useless as you have one puppet that lasts one turn that can summon one unit, so you could as well have summoned with the same effect (except for Gibbon because the unit summoned by the puppet has the puppet not the illusion promotion). The effectivity of puppets therefor directly is connected with Keelyns summoner trait.
So the big question is: How should puppets be balanced? In the modmod my brother and I created for own use we decreased the duration of summoned units from 3 to 2, but summoner also gives summoned units the enhanced promotion (which does the same thing as strong. We wanted the Towers to be still effective) which on first sight nerfs summoner, but on second sight helps some leaders (Sheaim with adept rush) while other leaders like Keelyn are balanced.
I'm sure that this is not the way to go as many people like summoner as it is. My intention is to start the discussion about a balance issue that the FFH team itself wants to see addressed.

 

[Kael]

Ive been scratching my head on this for a while too and Im coming to the same conclusion as you. That summoning should:

1. Decrease from +2 to +1 duration.
2. Increase the strength of the summoned unit (probably in the 10-20% range).

This cleans up a lot of issues, puppets being a major one. And Im interested what other people think. Keep in mind that:

1. I really dont imagine merging Summoner with Arcane, I'd like these to stay two distinct traits.
2. Simple solutions are always better than complex ones.

 

[WarKirby]

Maybe casting Summon Puppet should cause some damage to the caster, making them more vulnerable to asassin attacks, and forcing them to stop doing it every now and then to heal.

It should also count as having moved, so that they have to go a turn without casting before they start to heal.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Are there any Aggressive summoners? How about giving Combat 1 to a Summoner's summons?

 

[Kainkenny]

With Perpentach, i allways use my puppets to cast domination, just in case the spell is blocked by the target.

 

[Keyeth]

Remove summon spells from puppets, maybe?

 

[Kael]

With Perpentach, i allways use my puppets to cast domination, just in case the spell is blocked by the target.

Yeap, thats actually intended. The Balseraphs are the masters of mind magic so its fitting that they have a way around Dominations nasty side effect.

 

[wig]

I posted this idea in the last Puppet thread, shortly before it died.

Give puppets a 50% spell failure rate (little wooden boys aren't exactly perfect spell casters). It's simple and adds to the chaotic nature of the Balseraphs.

 

[jwin]

Remove puppets. They are interesting and everything, but life seemed so much simpler before they came around.

 

[Grey Fox]

This sounds like good changes of Summoner trait to me:

• Reduce Duration to +1 turns (so it's 2 instead of 3).
• Give all summons Combat I

This makes it both a nerf and a buff. Combat I means that combined with summons gaining experience, that they can take Shock, or whatever after a successful combat. It's not as strong as giving +1 str to skeletons, but stronger than +1 str to stronger summons.

Not sure if this is enough to stop Puppets from being too strong in the hands of Keelyn however. But its a step in the right direction.

 

[the_fish]

Yeap, thats actually intended. The Balseraphs are the masters of mind magic so its fitting that they have a way around Dominations nasty side effect.

Remove puppets. They are interesting and everything, but life seemed so much simpler before they came around.

So...perhaps replacing puppets with a way for the Balseraphs to cast enhanced mind magic?

Why not simply give all Balseraph arcane units a promotion that reduces the targets chance to resist spell effects? (in the same manner as Dextrous/Sinister/Horselord) Or just set the Domination failure to not remove Mind III if the caster was Balseraph.

Granted, I haven't played with puppets (I'll get Civ4+BtS on this PC eventually), but they seem like a cute idea that gets broken out of all proportion with the Summoner trait. The problem doesn't lie with the Summoner trait.

 

[Fafnir13]

I like trading off some duration for increased strength with the summoner trait. Might want to give them a mobility thing as well to make up for their decreased turn of range. But even with a reduced duration, Keelyn puppets would still be scary good when compared with every other bit of summoning magic in the game. Just playing as the Sheaim with hordes of strength 11 specters is enough to crush the world with ease.
Puppets should just not be effected by the summoner trait. They give your mages a bit more maneuverability and safety among other things. They don't need to be tripling or even doubling the number of spells you can cast.
To ensure that Keelyn remains a stronger summoner then others, give her a special trait that grants an additional turn of duration. This would still give her a larger horde of summoned units to throw at the enemy but by a smaller margin.

 

[jwin]

I've been thinking (a very dangerous thing to do) and think that maybe ratheer than shorten durations, puppets, or all summons, should be permanent with Summoning but limited to one per caster, using the code FF uses to designate who did the summoning.

A caster could make a puppeet, send it off to war, and sit at home doing all the fun things crazy mages do. If the puppet died in the field, they could send another one.

It would give a giant advantage to Summoning trait by keeping your mages safe at home and able to cast their non combat spells (albeit getting no combat experience) while still having all the summoning power at the front. If it was expanded to all summons being permanant, then you would also have some pretty powerful summons after a couble of battles experience.

I know this is pretty much the exact opposite of my previous suggestion, getting rid of puppets. Like I said, thinking is a dangerous thing to do.

 

[the_fish]

I've been thinking (a very dangerous thing to do) and think that maybe ratheer than shorten durations, puppets, or all summons, should be permanent with Summoning but limited to one per caster, using the code FF uses to designate who did the summoning.

A caster could make a puppeet, send it off to war, and sit at home doing all the fun things crazy mages do. If the puppet died in the field, they could send another one.

It would give a giant advantage to Summoning trait by keeping your mages safe at home and able to cast their non combat spells (albeit getting no combat experience) while still having all the summoning power at the front. If it was expanded to all summons being permanant, then you would also have some pretty powerful summons after a couble of battles experience.

I know this is pretty much the exact opposite of my previous suggestion, getting rid of puppets. Like I said, thinking is a dangerous thing to do.

Doesn't this double the amount of arcane units at your disposal (including archmages)?

I like the idea in principle, though. Perhaps the perma-puppet could be vastly powered down?

 

[jwin]

Well, right now you have 4 times as many arcane units, because each one has three puppets running around them all the time. This way, you could either have double the number in the field, or one set in the field and the other set at home.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

don't change thesummoner trait. it's just summoner+puppets that's broken. you could either:

1) allow mages to only have one puppet at a time
2) allow puppets to only have one summon at a time
3) both

that way everything stays the same but getting 72 summons is no longer possible. should be easy and effective imho.

also, what jwin suggested about puppets being permanent sounds good. maybe only keelyn's puppets could be permanent while perpentach's remain as they are?

 

[Fafnir13]

Making all summons permenent would be an interesting change to the game. It would certainly allow players to pursue a victory using only arcane units, something that's not feasible right now.
It would be a really big change though, so I doubt the team would even consider it nifty as it is.

 

[jwin]

Yes, sorry, I only ment with the Summoner trait that puppets would be perm.
As for all summons, it would change things a lot, but there are so few summoner trait people out there that many games would not be very different.

 

[kumquatelvis]

Ive been scratching my head on this for a while too and Im coming to the same conclusion as you. That summoning should:

1. Decrease from +2 to +1 duration.
2. Increase the strength of the summoned unit (probably in the 10-20% range)

You could take it further and get rid of the extra duration completely and make a Summoner's summoned units lots bigger. This could help in coding the AI, as you could simply tell it to never attack a summoned unit. Right now the AI will lose two or three guys attacking a summon that will go away on it's own at the end of the turn. However, the Summoner trait means that sometimes attacking a summon is the smart thing to do, so a blanket ban would be an over correction. But if all summons lasted only one round it would be simple to make the AI a little more intelligent.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that Puppets should be permanent, and thus be limited to one per caster. Having the Puppet promotion give the unit a higher chance of failing to cast a spell properly and/or of dealing less damage would be fine too.


I still think that boosting a summon's duration should be an effect of Dimensional sphere promotions instead of a trait.

Would making Summoner grant Twincast be too much?

I don't really see a point of Sundered and Summoner being seperate traits.