Disapointed by summoner

Agree, a lot of mage traits are filler and levels come so infrequently its a real let down when you grow a level only to be forced to take a skill you don't really even want and doesn't make you a better caster. I wrote a post on a idea I had for a fix: https://forums.elementalgame.com/442048

I agree wholeheartedly, the game fails miserably at the summoner mechanic. The one summon per spell limit kills it outright. People don't play summoners in fantasy 4x games to have 1 of a few crappy summons running around the map, they want to summon armies. If I have the mana and want to summon an army of 50 ice elementals to defend my cities and attack my enemies, let me. Increase the upkeep or upfront mana cost of the strategic summons if needed, but we need to be able to summon lots of units. I'm just not even going to bother with the summoner spec until then.

A multi summon trait isn't a terrible idea, there's no way to balance unlimited summons though.

I think they should have a perk later on in the last stages of the Summoner tree where it allows you to summon unlimited number of elementals of any type, but their mana maintenance stacks of course. I think it would be too OP early/mid game if you could do it, but if you've gotten to a sufficient level then you should be able to take the perk.

There is. Upkeep costs, the way every other game does it.

+1 Sanati, the upkeep cost is there for the balance. At the begining of a game, with 1 mana upkeep you just can't have unlimited summons (+initial cost). I never unlocked the last summons, i think it's always 1 mana upkeep? I think tougher summons should have an increased upkeep, reducing the amount you can get. Summons like Ice elementals or wargs aren't really good later compared to other elementals, so getting lot of them mid-late game isn't a game breaker i think.

There is other way to balance : have a soft/hard cap for each summons. Soft cap : For each summons of type x, have an increase of y% upkeep(and/or initial mana cost) for the next summon of same type. IF hard cap, make it x summons for each shard (depending of the summon/element).

But I really miss the element spec of summoner. In Master of magic, if your were spec in death you could summon ghost, undead units... Fire > fire element, salamander etc... Actualy there is no connection beteween your initial elements and the summons you can get.

There could be some ultimate summons, unique summons with huge cost, working like monster henchmen.

agree. summoning is VERY lackng in this game. However, I believe that whenever someone makes this statement, it is because they are thinking of the awesomeness of summoning that is found in MoM.

I still think that this is the direction that FE should take. Give the player the option of creating military might or magical might or summoning might or economic might or diplomatic might.....open up the possibilities.

I don't remember how summoning was done in MOM.  How did they do it?

Since I'm working on the AI handling summons better, I would like to see summons be made more worthwhile.

Hi Frogboy. Long time haven't played it, but if I remember well appart the upkeep there was no limit to the nber of units you could summon. You could create armies if you got enough mana. But more powerfull creature got an increased upkeep. The most interesting was all schools got some summon spells, so depending your mage spellbooks, you got differents creatures. A death mage got undead, ghost etc... Fire mage fire creatures... Having all the summons in one skill tree, and unlockable in a linear fashion isn't the most interesting.

In MoM summoning was just a strategic spell. Summon as many as you like with the downside being the upkeep cost (mana per turn) and competition for the casting queue (in MoM you were always casting something with spells taking many turns to complete).

FE/LH casting doesn't work like that so... what I'd like to see would be some kind of resource for summoning tied in with upgrading your outposts... which seems like too much work to see in LH.

-- Takkik got there first. SOrry for repetition.

It is in fact torturous. Worst part is the incredibly tiny amount of choice we have in what we summon. Not a water mage and don't have any water shards? too bad your only summon for the next  3 levels is a water elemental. Just because.

One thing with summoning is the amount of summoning that can be done. I found it rather fun when I made a unit that was able to summon troops to fight instead of the unit itself (weak mage unit, strong summon unit). The summoning skill seems rather unfinished. I would like to see more types of summoning, for example. If you have Water, summon water elemental. If you have Air, summon air elemental. If you have Air and Water summon an Ice elemental. If you have fire and air summon a steam elemental (or the like). If you have fire and earth summon an angry cooked frog. The point is there are not enough summon spells to account for 1 summon per caster.

I would maybe look into creating a summon group spells as well, instead of summoning 1 fire elemental, the option to summon a group of 3 minor fire elementals (or something). This could leave you with 1 large fire elemental you can summon but you can summon multiple groups of fire elementals.

Another suggestion would be to attach the number of shards to the number of elementals of that type you may summon. 2 fire shards equates to 3 fire elementals and so forth.

I would like to see that tatical summons cost less mana than strategic summons (3 / 4 the price in mana) or something. Also, there should be a casting range limit to creating summons in the tatical battle.

In Master of Magic, the bigger summoning spells were multiple turn casts, and fantastic creatures (ie things that were summoned) had significant mana upkeep costs, the better the creature, the more they cost per turn, and the more they cost (and the longer it took) to cast them.

And there were no balance issues if you wanted to summon lots of zombies, because lots of zombies did not win games. Sky Drakes, however...

Maybe making summoning spells take several turns to cast might allow them to be unrestricted in their quantity. Maybe balancing their upkeeps might help. Maybe both.

At the moment, when playing a summoner, after a bad combat, it is 'oh no, I lost my 100% easily replaceable summoned monster that I can recast in an instant'. Sometimes I have to wait for enough mana to cast the re-summoning.

We need a shrill summoning trait.

I think instead they are trying to go the route of tactical summons having a cast effect, like wisps healing in an area around where they are summoned.

I agree summoning could use a boost. To me in game it is one of the most exciting things to play but I usually avoid it in FE.

More I think about LH, more I think the problem is how you acquire new spells. Compared to games like MoM where you got a master spell book and unlocking all the spell with research (or the recent warlock), here all the spells are scattered into multiples trees + tech tree. Personnaly I think each character or the faction need an unique spell tree, with all the spells aviables and lot of branching, and you unlocking tiers/spells categories with the fire/earth/life/death/water/air perks in your general tree and by doing research in magic tree. Need to add something like spell points for buy new spells (asquired with the research tech tree? could get some free spell pts when buying new ranks in elements or in mage tree). And the mage skill tree is here just for improve your spell casting & unlocking mages skills rather than spell.

Wouldn't you be able to summon an endless amount of them though if you have that cap which you can buy before you start the game? The one which removes mana maintenance on the wearer of the cap. They'd definitely have to nerf that for summoning spells if they removed the cap on the amount of golems of same type you can have at any one time.

http://masterofmagic.wikia.com/wiki/Summoning_Spell

Well, if summoned troops are no longer 1 per summoner, they probably are no longer be going to be considered enchantments on the caster, but normal troops with normal upkeep, so Procipinee crown should not make them upkeep-free.

My limited experience playing a summoner, I have to say that I dislike the disconnect between your summons and your magic schools. I would much prefer if the summoning skill tree went something like:

- Shrill summon (allow you to summon shrill of any magic school that is at least level 1)

- Mass shrill summon (allow you to summon groups of 3 shrills of any magic school that is at least level 2)

- Elemental summon (ditto, but level 3 magic school)

- Master summon (big bad guy, require level 4 or 5 magic school)

That would make different summoners play differently depending on their magic school.

Something I really like about the current summoners are the two necromancy skills. Having a bunch of expendable troops that only last a single battle makes the summoner gameplay unique compared to the other classes. You can sort of do the same with the normal summons, but that require not having them already summoned, and they are a little on the expensive side. So it would be interesting if the summoner tree split into two branches: strategic long-lasting summons, and tactical cheep summons.

I love Fallen Enchantress, but MoM has the best-designed, most fun magic system I ever played with.  Even if it was unbalanced.

In MoM, your nodes, inhabitants and champions would generate "magic", which if I remember correctlly you'd distribute between research (only spells came ut of this), Mana, and Power.  Power represented the amount of mana you could cast on each turn, and it increased in a arithmetic progression (i.e. to jump from 100 power points to 105, you had to spend 100+101+102+103+104=510 magic points).  So if you had 105 spell points, you could cast 5 summoning spells that costed 20 mana each.

Almost all spells and magic creatures had some mana upkeep, so balance was kept by how carefully you had to develop you power and how much mana you got left after all upkeep.

edit: replaced gold by research

Oh, and high-level spells would cost lots of mana, so automatically would become multi-turn casts.  And heroes that didn' t participate in combat (or that were in your cities, I don' t remember), contributed 50% of their power base to yours for that turn.  Heroes had their own power bases, their own mana pools.  You could cast spells to create custom, overpowered artifacts for heroes.  Your sovereign didn' t have an avatar, and was the only hero that could cast strategic-level spells.

A few have already replied, but there is a point missed:

For MoM, there were two types of summoning:

Of the first type, tactical summoning: This occurs when you are on the battlefield and wish to have some assistance from a summoned unit. There sometimes was a casting time, but most were instant. The summoned creature cost a set amount of mana (generally larger amount than if cast outside of combat). I believe you were also limited to one of each type. Once the combat has resolved, the summoned creature goes back from whence it came.

Of the second type, strategic summoning: This occurred whenever the player wants to summon a creature on the strategic map. There was no restriction to the number that can be summoned, however there was turn duration for this summoning depending on the creature being summoned and there was upkeep on all summoned creatures. When these creatures entered into combat, and if they survived, they still existed afterwards.

This escentially gave the player two types of summoning with one set of creatures. You could either use summoned creatures in a pinch during combat to help you win, but at greating immidiate cost....or you could plan ahead and build yourself a magical army that took time and upkeep to maintain.

I for one really hope this type of summoning is implemented. It would totally open up a world of options.

GfireflyE, there is already the 2 types of summoning, but you only get a bunch of tactical summoning : 1 undead & undead hordes for empire, wisp and another for Kingdom (The ui say they are strategique but they are tactical like for empire summoners no?). Earth have a beast summoning. But i'm not against more.

Another thing I dislike : As a no summoner, you unlock like 3-4 spells for each point invested in fire, earth etc... disciplines. As a summoner you need more than 10 skills points for unlock summoning (reaching the end of 1 of 2 branching), each time unlocking only 1 creature. You sacrify all your skill pts and lost all diversity. And with the 1 summon limit you don't win much power at each level (worst in my last game I got like 700 mana but didn't get lot of spells for use it).

Like said before by me and others, need some summons in the spell disciplines perks, and I think in the mage tree need to group the summons, so for each pt invested you get a bunch of different summons aviables (diversity). Could mix some strategic with tactical summons. Or have more differents summons, like support summons (healers, debuffer etc...), scout summons, summons with small combat abilities but with armies buff perks (like henchmen) etc...

support better summons

The overland spell casting time is one of the few major things missing from elemental.  "power" (how much mana you could spend per turn as already described) forced very difficult decisions.  

The other thing that would be nice to see, is the option to add "global enchantments". A uI to manage them, and some dispells that would work on these.