Summoning and how it has changed

[Chronie]

Magic that was used to create units with the unofficial version now has a timer. This doesn't render summons actually useless but restricts the use in the army to just extra charge units. When a magical specialist hero that has Arcane magic gets to around level 30 they can extend the summon durations to a decent level.

Some classes with the rebalancing have been seriously weakened such as the Tinker that would use golems to help protect their towers. Golems are mechanical and therefore immune to many instant kill spells. Alchemist class heroes could use the same summon but found much more use in the Acquire and Spellforge spells most of the time.

Characters that heavily invested in summoning type magic such as Summoning (Daemons), Nature and Necromancy will have a much harder time at low levels. This eventually balances out at high levels but is much less merciful to newer players. Normally I would recommend spell casting classes that don't scale their magic well to gain a support skill from their race available at level 10 or less. This adds much needed diversity as summoning was generally only scaled off mana generation rate well past a certain point in skill investment.

Just to show how Arcane magic works

Arcane Magic has serious setup and maintainance costs assuming a base mana regeneration rate of 6 per 20 seconds (18 per minute)
Enervate 1 which lasts 2 minutes would give a total of 18 mana but cost 20 to setup.
Extend 1 which also lasts 2 minutes but doubles the duration of other spells but costs 22 mana

Even if we combine the 2 the total cost is 42 and only gives 36 mana. These costs add up over time and harm a summoners potential to act as a leader.

If we assume we are using the 2nd version of the spell
Enervate lasts an extra minute giving 54 mana that is 34 mana more than costs
Extend if used can increase this to 66 mana total after costs
Since these bonuses are over 6 minutes and a total of 11 mana per minute is gained once this has been setup.

Mana Flow requires roughly 96 mana to be spent in it's duration before any benefit is seen.
Leech requires 8 kills to break even before is starts giving a benefit.

These take time to get and the players concentration to maintain. Should a mage not go into summoning they can use these magics to increase their power with surplus mana generated even at lower skill levels. Mana potions are useful however they can be used for more than just setting up Arcane magic such as used to chain 3 Ice Storm spells or similar magic once per map with a high level keep. When you have built an army up enough it can instantly rebuild lost troops.

If you do not like these changes or have a buggy version hunt down Intikhab's post for fixes in these forums.

[#1 Slime NA]

Necros and summoners both get free workers to spam and fill mines so you can devote resources to building up an army and teching faster, and immediately fill mines anywhere you capture them on the map without having to produce workers and move them over.

Also, any build that utilizes summoning should also get Arcane magic to extend their summons durations and give increased mana regen/reduced spell costs, or Time magic to buff all your summons and better-than-average military due to superior economy.

Permanent summons were pretty dumb before. You not only got the superior economy, you had a secondary way of bolstering your army to be even larger. It easily overwhelmed any other build until an extremely high level where everything goes to hell anyway.

[Chronie]

Originally posted by A regular goat:

Necros and summoners both get free workers to spam and fill mines so you can devote resources to building up an army and teching faster, and immediately fill mines anywhere you capture them on the map without having to produce workers and move them over.

Tome of Utter Darkness gives 3 Necromancy skill and isn't that hard to get. This allowed any class to do this and the Strip Flesh spell (if it triggered) on the item converted most weak troops into skeletons.

Originally posted by A regular goat:

Also, any build that utilizes summoning should also get Arcane magic to extend their summons durations and give increased mana regen/reduced spell costs, or Time magic to buff all your summons and better-than-average military due to superior economy.

Just as I stated earlier it balances out later. Summons if gotten to 2nd level version of spells were above level 1 units and very useful for a hero or army. Also see pyromancy which could do the same thing for most units. This was balanced with either critical hit, high damage per strike or assassinate for more melee focused builds. Retinue troops were more effective than heroes early game.

Originally posted by A regular goat:

Permanent summons were pretty dumb before. You not only got the superior economy, you had a secondary way of bolstering your army to be even larger. It easily overwhelmed any other build until an extremely high level where everything goes to hell anyway.

Mages were usually better off spending their mana on combat spells which could destroy entire waves of units so yes it could be considered dumb. Making a choice in sticking to summoning means you are competing with the Merchant and Tinker as well as other leader builds. These classes could put more statistics into charisma for a bigger discounts and had other tricks as well to compete with summoners.

Merchants with superior discounts created gold and crystal resources usually used for racial bonuses or magical troops. Tinkers enhanced building health and generated stone as well as iron. Stone is usually used for buildings or some weak filler troops and iron for melee troops. Both of these could trade their resources to break the limitations of summoning magic and would get some intelligence to get at least 3rd level troops produced as well as use some magic for support.

Originally posted by A regular goat:

Time magic to buff all your summons and better-than-average military due to superior economy.

Time magic was added in the unofficial patches and was never in the original game. Useful true but you are competing with much better leader type you are about equal in power or were in the original. These benefits from time magic can be greater than actual summoning of troops.

High level leaders are the hardest type of character to play and summoners are just like them both are trying to get up the tech tree for bonuses before they are destroyed. When a mage summons troops they are exchanging attack spells for units but for a leader they are trying to supplement their income in another way.

[TheBasque]

Originally posted by Not a slime:

Necros and summoners both get free workers to spam and fill mines so you can devote resources to building up an army and teching faster, and immediately fill mines anywhere you capture them on the map without having to produce workers and move them over.

Also, any build that utilizes summoning should also get Arcane magic to extend their summons durations and give increased mana regen/reduced spell costs, or Time magic to buff all your summons and better-than-average military due to superior economy.

Permanent summons were pretty dumb before. You not only got the superior economy, you had a secondary way of bolstering your army to be even larger. It easily overwhelmed any other build until an extremely high level where everything goes to hell anyway.

Finally, someone that actually played the game against other people, and knows about it unlike most people on steam that post here. Not that I should be surprised, or anything.

[Chronie]

Fair points Not a Slime sorry if i sounded a little harsh

If people want to see how broken Time magic is try making a Dark Dwarf Runemaster. You can get rune magic for build speed, engineer for building health, Arcane magic for spell enhancements and Time magic for turning just about everything else in your favor.

Builds like this thanks to time magic have spelt the end for tinkers, merchants and other builds considered leaders. Summon timers just put the nails in the coffin. People just need mana regeneration items and just try to beat it without being able to level an entire base single handedly. Items to summon workers can also be gotten quite easily and anti rush tactics used to stop melee focused characters from killing you until extreme levels. Multiplayer games have been kinda ruined by the unofficial patches. Sure there were imbalances like destruction but this could still be countered by the time heroes reached high enough to use the spell.

To counter a hero using a powerful area effect spell use lightning damage, chaos magic's drain mana, lifeward, lowering their health with your army, engineering to increase building health, creating multiple bases on a large map or if worse comes to worse hiding your hero in a tower. High levels spells took a long time to recharge so if you can kill the mage before they can recover do so. Armies were sacrificed just to wear down a powerful mage now but if they also can make these armies better than any other there goes any strategy.

Heroes from level 50 to 100 could turn the battlefield into a living hell for normal troops and going beyond level 100 was like declaring your character a god. The game balance started to break around level 50 anyway for the heroes. With good builds able to destroy entire armies with ease making people focus on wearing down the opponent to increase their own heroes chances of surviving.

Still people will play they way they want. I just get annoyed that people grab the first strategy they find that is good then try to impose their opinions on others never considering anything else. There usually were 2 or 3 ways to play a class effectively but as you can see some options are just too powerful now.

[#1 Slime NA]

The thing is, the game can never be balanced for high level heroes. Everything just becomes way too powerful. Warriors can become basically immortal, mages can blow up entire bases, assassins can assassinate everything in one hit, merchants can discount dragons to 100 resources.

The balance changes were made with lower level heroes in mind, since it was generally agreed that in multiplayer you'd play with a level 10-20 temporary hero. Summoners were way too strong at those levels, because without super strong heroes having more and better units is very strong. It's the same reason the racial morale bonuses were nerfed to only +1 instead of +2, making them all worse than Leadership, because having +20-40 morale for all your units was just too powerful. Same for the bonus experience abilities, bonus health abilities, etc. etc. Summoners weren't the only things nerfed, far from it. Anything allowing you to just build up an immensely strong army easily was nerfed. Merchant bonus was also nerfed IIRC.

[Chronie]

Originally posted by Not a slime:

The thing is, the game can never be balanced for high level heroes. Everything just becomes way too powerful. Warriors can become basically immortal, mages can blow up entire bases, assassins can assassinate everything in one hit, merchants can discount dragons to 100 resources.

That stuff is level 100+ the game was never meant to go that high and at level 100 was the upper limit. Powerful but still killable heroes however if you lost your hero it was almost a game over and some builds became ineffective by that point. The battles degenerate down to the heroes trying to keep their distance and make the first move which will result in a kill most of the time. Rare items are expected to be gotten by this point giving more of a benefit than any skill and make it difficult to kill the hero.

Really people will want to stop around level 50 when most character builds can still be countered easily. Even the toughest level 50 heroes can be killed with the aid of a titan, retinue, dragons or summons.

Originally posted by Not a slime:

The balance changes were made with lower level heroes in mind, since it was generally agreed that in multiplayer you'd play with a level 10-20 temporary hero.

Temporary heroes are terrible units as they do not have any good gear unless an alchemist or runemaster. When a summoner was used every mana was effectively worth roughly 6 resources. Mages were the only good heroes without items around the 10 to 20 level mark with some like the Necromancer really shining around this time even with the changes. Magics around this time generally lacked in power unless you mean the top end spells, status effects or instant kills.

Originally posted by Not a slime:

It's the same reason the racial morale bonuses were nerfed to only +1 instead of +2, making them all worse than Leadership, because having +20-40 morale for all your units was just too powerful. Same for the bonus experience abilities, bonus health abilities, etc. etc. Summoners weren't the only things nerfed, far from it. Anything allowing you to just build up an immensely strong army easily was nerfed. Merchant bonus was also nerfed IIRC.

The bonuses you mentioned are not all nerfed. See Divination, Retinue, Summoning workers etc. These skill were changed to stop people from dumping all their statistics into one area. Some strategies still work and work extremely well. Even a low level magic can level an entire base using mana potions with a high keep bonus. There are plenty of ways to still make an overkill character but it is more difficult and less specialised in the character design in most cases.

Many players had trouble facing down a powerful character early on as they neglected getting unit to act as bodyguard to aid the towers in defense. Every hero could become with good gear at least an equal to a general type unit. If people want strategy without a super unit just turn heroes off.