Endgame Diversity Mod - v1.2 released

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by Digress

Golems ?

Sorry, maybe then this should be done by some other path(s). Still, I'd say that Earth is probably a good base for such a spell.

[llamabeast]

Okay, so some discussion on this mod has been happening on the other forum. Rather than split the discussion between two threads, I've decided to try pasting the comments here. Hopefully the people frequenting that forum won't feel too aggravated at having to post here (those who are allowed to of course). It's quite possible I would be better to just move this thread there, but we will give this a go.

Originally Posted by Frozen Lama

I think the cyclops adds a lot more than another SC to the game. He is great E acess, at a price less than an earth king. I'm not saying that it is necessarily bad, but it makes all those nations without E acess except for their E9 pretender have solid, inexpensive earth acess. plus he has feet slots.

Also, he feels like he makes Earth King's a little obsolete since, although they are harder to summon, they have more E magic, better slots, and of course are cheaper and non-unique.

not sure if its bad or good, but it adds more than just endgame SC options.

Originally Posted by quantum mechani

I have to say these seem like really good points, I agree less earth magic on the cyclops would probably be good.

Originally Posted by zzcat

IMO same comment can be applyed to Asynja. For a price of 2 air boosters, you can buy an A4 mage or a cloud trapezing RoS spammer with 95 HP/18 MR/full slots. It's way too cheap by any means.

I personally don't think the game needs an cheap, non-unique RoSer with tons of hp. It will make many human nations' late game extremely boring.

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

Damn, my sarcasm filter just blew out.

[llamabeast]

Thanks for the (pasted) comments guys.

Firstly, I gave the Cyclops and Asynja powerful magic largely on thematic grounds, and to make them viable alternatives to Tartarians. The fact of the matter is I haven't played the end game for a year or so, and shockingly enough have never fully explored the full potential of Tartarians. Er, I guess you could argue that makes me a bad person to make this mod! In any case it makes such feedback very valuable.

With regard to the cyclops - options are:
- Reduce his Earth magic by 1
- Make him more expensive
- Make him harder to summon
- Increase the magic of the Elemental Royalty by 1 (I have long thought this should be done anyway, but perhaps it's outside the scope of this mod?)

Similar options apply to the Asynja. Maybe I could reduce or eliminate her access to Earth magic, so she can't cast Rain of Stones? Seems to me a straight air mage is not such a threat.

Also, forgive my failing memory, but isn't high earth and air access quite common on Tartarians? I would like Earth and Air summons to be better for those paths than death summons.

Finally, I'm considering adding glamour to the Asynja, if I can. Does that sound monstrously overpowered?

I have a new version pretty much done, but it can wait for some additional feedback, so now is an excellent time for people to offer their thoughts. Thanks!

PS Gregstrom, I didn't understand your post. Maybe I am displaying tragic incomprehension, but who is being sarcastic?

[Gregstrom]

I'm pretty sure zztop^H^H^Hcat was being sarcastic. As you rightly comment, one flavour of Tartarian Cyclops has E3A2 - it's a very popular choice for GoR and RoS spam as a result. 1 time in 4 35 Air gems gets you a RoS caster (A2E2 and non-0 enc isn't enough for RoS spamming) with half the hits and none of the resistances of a Tartarian. IMO, that is probably sarcasm. Commenting that you sometimes get A4 this way when you can guarantee yourself A4 by spending 25 Air gems added to that impression.

Asynja and Cyclops (also a great candidate for RoS spam) both have the advantage of reliability over Tarts, and I'm not sure how that balances out. You're always getting a usable commander and caster, even though neither one is guaranteed to cast RoS out of the box. Perhaps the Cyclops having a reasonable chance of E5 is a little much, but I think it's too soon to be sure. There are so many other uses for 35 E gems that some nations will probably prefer to run a Tart factory until they can GoR an E4 Tart cyclops instead.

[Valerius]

Hi, llama. First off, thanks very much for this mod.

As far as the cyclops goes, what about a 50% chance of an additional E, 25% chance of A, and 25-50% chance of F? This reduces their abilities in E magic, but even more importantly reduces the chance of the powerful AE combo. The only tart guaranteed that combination is one of the two cyclops - but you've only got a 1 in 7 chance of getting him. You could get that path combo on another chassis but it might not have full slots.

You could do something similar with the Asynja. Maybe a 50% chance of an additional A, 25% chance of E, and another 10% chance of AEB? I'd be hesitant to give her glamour, though. I think that stealth is a powerful ability on an SC, glamour even more so. It would probably be better to get more reports from games using the diversity mod before doing this.

As far as pricing goes, I can see it going a little higher on the price of both of the units in question but since the goal of the mod is to have viable alternatives to tarts I think they have to be cost effective. If the prices on the diversity mod summons get too high, I think people will still feel the Chalice/GoH and tart combo are too good to consider other options (I think it's ok if tarts are still the most cost effective option - as long as the alternatives are close enough to be worth considering).

As regards elemental royalty, you could add to their magic paths (I think a random would be better than another point in the path they already have) but it might also be worth considering giving them better summon ally abilities or something along those lines. Or maybe a useful onebattlespell that might even be outside their magic paths. I think something like that would make them still worth summoning even with comparable SC/spellcasting chassis available. And I don't think it's outside the scope of the mod at all - heck, you could also make treelord's worthwhile at the same time.

On another note, I'll be very interested to see what people have to say about the Grendelkin. My first impression was the same as rdonj's from earlier in the thread. No magic, but incredible stats...

[Wrana]

I agree that the problem is that these summons outshine Elemental Royalty too much. I'd say the problem is the same with Emberlords (especially!) and Ents. As a way to fix I think that making Asynja's magic more random is probably quite good. Considering Cyclops I am not sure that Air magic is really thematic for him. Maybe make Fire/Earth random? Glamour for Asynja, while thematic, makes her actually better than ASynja Pretender - I don't think that's as it should be.
Considering fix of Elemental Royalty, I' d agree with Valerius that some thematic #onebattlespell can go a long way here. Another possibility is, of course, gem generation...

[Gregstrom]

Why not just cut the cost of Elemental Royalty by 10 gems? Although I do like the #onebattlespell idea...

[zzcat]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

I'm pretty sure zztop^H^H^Hcat was being sarcastic. As you rightly comment, one flavour of Tartarian Cyclops has E3A2 - it's a very popular choice for GoR and RoS spam as a result. 1 time in 4 35 Air gems gets you a RoS caster (A2E2 and non-0 enc isn't enough for RoS spamming) with half the hits and none of the resistances of a Tartarian. IMO, that is probably sarcasm. Commenting that you sometimes get A4 this way when you can guarantee yourself A4 by spending 25 Air gems added to that impression.

Asynja and Cyclops (also a great candidate for RoS spam) both have the advantage of reliability over Tarts, and I'm not sure how that balances out. You're always getting a usable commander and caster, even though neither one is guaranteed to cast RoS out of the box. Perhaps the Cyclops having a reasonable chance of E5 is a little much, but I think it's too soon to be sure. There are so many other uses for 35 E gems that some nations will probably prefer to run a Tart factory until they can GoR an E4 Tart cyclops instead.

As Valerius's point out, you have only 1/7 chance to get a E3A2 Tartarian Cyclops per cast, 4 times in 5 you need extra 15N to GoR them(so 27 gems in total), and you have to have GoH or the chalice to make them usable. With earth boots 3 in 4 asynjas will be RoS caster, the other can cloud trapeze then cast fog warriors and wrathful skies w/o any equipment. IMO it affects end game even more than cyclops do.

[rdonj]

Just for fun, I've got a grendelkin picture. Hardly ideal gear, really... this one exists to kill armies of 100+ warhammer ogres. As you can probably tell, it hasn't quite gotten that far yet. My ideal anti-sc would have quickness, probably dual swords of swiftness or anti-undead weaponry, and an insane attack skill. That's an e9n4 shroud it's wearing by the way, and it has 36 regen a turn. If you have anything resembling a decent bless, a shroud makes a lot of sense to slap onto one of those. Imagine one with W9/Fx/Nx

Also, I am all for boosting the elemental royalties, moreso than I'm behind nerfing the end game diversity summons. Although I think taking air away from the cyclops makes sense. I would leave the royalties still more expensive. They should be good enough to be a prize though to have now. I kind of like the idea of making them generate gems, but that would probably make them hoarded too much. Giving them #onebattlespells seems like a much better idea, since they'd have to be used more aggressively. They could also potentially receive hp boosts.

I would have no problem with them having things like earthquake, living earths, storm... not sure what to do with pedoseion. Blood rain?

[kianduatha]

If they're doing #onebattlespells, I'm seeing definitely one guy casting Curse of Stones, one Heat from Hell, the aquatic Water one Friendly Currents, the amphibious one Rain/Quagmire(both!). More quality-of-life spells than anything else. Also Pedoseion should #onebattlespell Iron Bane, ugh.