Endgame Diversity Mod - v1.2 released

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Sajuuk

So what about cyclops and troll king? cyclops are cheaper than troll king, can be a better sc than troll king, and have better path than troll king. Troll king's only advantage is his court, yet I'm afraid they are not worth 25E or more. Beside, cyclops make earth kings much less useful, too.

The troll king's court also only requires three earth to cast, compared to six earth for the cyclops. Six earth is hard to reach without both a ring of wizardry and a staff of elemental mastery. Three earth is reachable by anyone with earth two.

Making the unique summons less useful is part of the point. Personally, I'd make them all non-unique if I could do it so that there isn't such a race to get the very large power boost from being the first to reach their research levels. Of course, I'd also make the global spell limit moddable so that a 24 person game isn't stuck with the same total number of global spells as a 2 person game.

[Zeldor]

llamabeast:

You are making chaotic changes, based on I don't know what. You should stick with your ideas and do changes based on how you see things + just on reliable data. My data is not very reliable and quite specific [which I explained on IRC], the best thing you have is Valerius stats. And you have almost no data about other summons.

[Valerius]

Llama, I agree with you that it's a good idea to have a stable release and not change things too frequently. It's also tempting to make changes now before games start using the newest release. But the games that began with the first release of the mod are now reaching the point where feedback on the in-game performance of these units is arriving. Of course it's just fragments at the moment. The fact that a certain unit excels against another unit or that a given summon doesn't do well in certain situations is only a partial picture. It will take more time to see what the overall performance of these summons in a variety of situations is. And even more importantly, to see if the Diversity summons are a viable alternative to tarts. So I think it's worth holding off on making changes for now and using the feedback from the current games to create the stable release you mentioned.

[Aethyr]

Llama, I absolutely concur with Squirrell, Zeldor, and Valerius. I'm in FastBlitz3 now, and I hope to have some feedback for you soon.

[Sajuuk]

I absolutely agree that only by real test in MP can we make a true conclusion on those summons, especially creatures like shishi or zmey——creature that can tear down fully equiped thugs alone with their nature weapon are pretty unfamiliar to all of us, thus a quick judgement usually proven wrong.

But cyclops and asynja are another case: They are classic SC template with full slot, just comparing them with other SC, either general summons like elemental royalty or national summons like angels, and a pre-conclusion can be made without too much error.

After all, this mod is to provide an alterate to tarts, not to replace all other summons.

[rdonj]

For the record, I still don't think it matters if a cyclops is just *better* than a troll king. They are used for very different things, and the troll soldiers *can* be very useful. Especially as soul vortex batteries :P Further, tarts have ridiculous magic paths and can already easily beat troll kings as earth mages.

[LDiCesare]

I tested them again, and my conclusion is:
Grendelkin are worthless.
Yes, worthless. A waste of gems.
For hardly more gems, I can get a sea troll king with his retinue. He's able to pack some punch underwater. Grendelkin underwater suck. Why do they cost that many WATER gems then?
They're a waste of gems. I'd rather use water gems to summon stuff that can be used underwater.
Either give them amphibious or make them require anything but water gems to summon.
Right now I have found in my MP game 2 units to be better than grendelkin: Bane lords (yes, seriously) and sea troll kings.

[kianduatha]

Soo, you're saying that Grendelkin should be full amphibians?

I do admit, my first foray into using a Grendelkin in an actual MP game resulted in tragedy. That's much more the fault of the RNG than anything else, though. Anything can be charmed if some lucky Pan gets off a successful Charm against 21MR.

[llamabeast]

Sorry you've had no luck with the Grendelkin LDiCesare. The thing is they're not amphibious, and that's deliberate. They may live in wet caves, but they can't breathe underwater (think Gollum).

I agree that there are situations (underwater combat) where a Troll King is a better buy. However I'm also reasonably confident that there are some situations (e.g. if you want a land SC) where a Grendelkin is a better buy - so, things have different niches, which is good.

If you want to use water gems to summon underwater power, have you tried the kraken?

[LDiCesare]

If I want a kraken, I need to start underwater. For a troll king, I don't. Troll kings are more varied than grendelkins, come earlier, generate gems, come with a retinue. After testing, I see no reason to waste gems on grendelkins. I've had more success with a bane lord than with a grendelkin. Grendelkins seem to be made for a niche that I have no use for. After losing my second kitted grendelkin, I'm going for a sea troll. I know that he can reduce the same oppo to pulp with his retinue, i.e. for less gems overall.
Now if I don't want to fight underwater, would I pick a grendelkin? Maybe. But given the paths I chose in my game, I'd already have tartarians in that game if I hadn't tried to go with this beast. So now, should I want a land SC, I'll still research tarts as it's much more efficient and powerful, and not actually longer to research. It'll also free water gems for boots of speed, frost brands, water breathing trinkets and cold resistance items.