It's been a while since my last episode and I haven't really made all that much progress. I've still been playing almost every day. My issue has been that I've not been very active when I do play and I'm at a point in the game that my current play style isn't advancing me anymore ... or so I thought. There is one way my play style can still make a difference, I just haven't been trying it yet.
Before I go into that I want to go back to where I left off in the last episode. I has hyping up the Light/Dark scroll because whatever I got would have been fairly rare. However I was less than overjoyed with a Bearman. Not that he is necessarily bad, its just that I have no interest in him. The most common way to get monsters is by summoning them with scrolls. The most common scroll you can earn is the Unknown Scroll. An Unknown Scroll earns you one random monster of grades 1 to 3 stars of the Fire/Water/Wind type. After the Unknown Scroll, the next type of scroll is the far rarer Mystical Scroll. The Mystical Scroll gives you a random monster of grades 3 to 5 stars. The thing about these scrolls is that you can only get Fire, Water or Wind monsters from them. In terms of rarity, the next types of scrolls are Fire, Water and Wind scrolls which acts like a Mystical Scroll but only summons one type. So you can't get Light or Dark monsters from the most commonly found scrolls in the game which makes them far rarer than other types of monsters. Its not until you get to the even rarer Light and Dark Scrolls that you actually have a chance of getting one. Like Mystical Scrolls, Light and Dark Scrolls summon monsters of grades 3 to 5. I'm getting to the point in the game where I'm beginning to sacrifice 3 star monsters for other purpose. Even though I have no interest in a Bearman and have sacrifice other Bearman of different types, I'm keeping the Light Bearman just because Light/Dark monsters are that rare.
After my last episode I was seriously considering change my play style. Relatively speaking, I've been in the same place in the game for 4 or 5 months now. Techniques other experts suggest didn't appeal to me but I was beginning to think I have no other choice if I wanted to advance any farther in the game. And then I unlocked the World Boss. The World Boss operates in a completely different way from anything else in the game. To fight the World Boss you use 10 to 20 monsters at once and you can fight the World Boss three times per day though a monster can only be used against the World Boss once a day. Its also not a "fight" in any sense of what you normally do. Instead the monsters you use in the battle is assign a score to them. The score is based on a number of factors and the score of all your monsters is added up to determine how much damage you did to the World Boss. Higher the damage, more the reward you get from fighting it. Some of those factors include the grade and level of the monster, the grade and level of the runes the monster has equip and how many of the monster's skill has been upgraded. Normal combat effectiveness doesn't matter in the World Boss. Improving the overall power of the monster helps get better rewards from the World Boss.
Because of the World Boss I can play how I like and still make progress in the game. I now have a reason to advance 60 monsters as far as I can. The higher tier World Boss rewards are quite valuable and well within my ability to earn them. I had moved away from collecting and powering up as many monsters as I could to focus on a smaller group, but now a large volume of monsters is the key to doing well against the World Boss. It also doesn't matter what type of runes I give my monsters as long as they are the strongest I have. Nevertheless this will be very slow progression. When I first started playing the game and learn most of its mechanics, it never occurred to me how slow this part of the game is. After 8 months of playing some experts will still consider me in the "early" game. I suppose this is fine as long as I have a goal in the game and haven't gotten myself burnt out.
This is another one of those topics that finding a comparison to miniature gaming doesn't quite work. The amount of effort that goes into maxing a monster's strength in the game is insane. Once a miniature is assembled and painted, its done. There is no need to go back over it outside of repairs and rare touch ups such as change a model's base for some reason. If repainting miniatures was more of a thing then I could make a comparison. In a way the work that goes into a monster is similar to the work of building an entire army in a miniature game. 8 months in and I'm still not close to having a single monster maxed out. Yes I have a few monsters at the highest grade and level, but that is just one part of the monsters strengths. Next time I think I will go over combat strategics as that should be a topic with a lot of crossover with miniature gaming. Until then, thanks for reading.
A War Gaming blog
Showing posts with label Summoners Journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summoners Journal. Show all posts
Friday, March 3, 2017
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Summoners Journal #2 - The Penguin Knight Event
I can not describe my feelings properly on the Penguin Knight event. "I love it", "I hate it", "It was enjoyable". These emotions doesn't quite fit my feelings on it. "Boring" is a lot closer but still not quite there. I think the best way to show my feelings on the event is to explain how the event works. And before I can get into that I need to explain a few more details about Summoners War mechanics.
I mention in episode 1 that monsters come in grades from 1-star to 5-star and all monsters can be evolved into 6-star monsters. What I didn't go into was how much effort it takes to evolve monsters above 3-star. Evolving a monster has two requirements. First the monster needs to be at max level. A monsters max level will depend on its grade. 1-star monsters max level is 15, 2-star monsters is 20 while 6-star monsters is 40. In essence each grade above 1-star adds 5 to its maximum level. Not only do higher grade monsters have a higher level cap, they also have a different experience table. 1-star monsters require 460 xp to go from level 1 to 2 while 6-star monsters require 1150 xp to do the same. Needless to say the higher a monster's grade, the harder it is to level them up to the cap. The other requirement to evolve monsters is that you need other monsters to sacrifice. The monsters being sacrifice needs to be the same grade as the monster you are trying to evolve (though their level doesn't matter). You also need a number of monsters equal to their star grade. That means to evolve a 3-star monster, first it needs to be at level 25 and you need three other monsters that are also 3-star. To evolve a 5-star monster you need five other 5-star monsters! This is a daunting task. The game does help with this pain staking process by giving out Rainbowmons as possible rewards. Rainbowmons are monsters that can never be used in combat but come at max level for its grade so you can immediately evolve it. That makes them extremely valuable.
With that understanding of how evolving and Rainbowmons work, this is what the event is. Every time you evolve a non Rainbowmon monster into a 4-star, 5-star or 6-star monster, you get a free Rainbowmon. There is a limit on how many Rainbowmons you can earn and of course the event is only a limited duration. So to take advantage of this event you need to evolve as many monsters as possible during this 2 week long event. That means leveling up a large number of monsters as quickly as possible. For me that meant playing the game in a mechanical way to manufacture monsters. The story missions is the best way to level up monsters if you have a single monster strong enough to solo it on the hardest difficulty (all monsters fighting on the team earn the same amount of xp). I probably played a set of maps at least 500 times during one week of this event. Spending most my time playing the same map over and over again is so boring but at the same time the reward is so good that I can not NOT play it.
It was kinda hard to make an equivalent example to miniature gaming. But I think I came up with something with a similar vibe. Imagine if someone near you was running an escalation league that used house rules you were not a fan of and require over half your army be newly assembled (and you have to prove it). However the host is giving out really good door prizes. In addition to door prizes every week you show up with two new units that you put together and painted that week, you get a free box set of your choice. I think most hobbyist (if you can afford the initial investment) would endure playing with bad house rules multiple weeks if it nets you 10 free boxes of miniatures.
And that's basically how I feel about the event. I can't say its a bad event because its giving away really valuable rewards. but at the same time its making me play in a way that makes me hate the game. I played the game a lot less these last 2 weeks following the event. I needed some time off. That said, I have made sizeable improvements because of the event. My account level which was 43 before the event is now max at 50. After playing for over 5 months I never had 6-star monsters until this event. I was close to getting my first 6-star before the event but I needed a small boost from early in the event to finally evolve my water knight into a 6-star. She gain a cool aura and was my strong point for leveling everyone else up.
By the end of the event she reach max level 40 from leveling other monsters. It took nearly the rest of the event to get enough monsters to evolve my second 6-star monster, my dark fairy. I almost considered myself done with this achievement, but the event still have a couple hours left and there were a few more Rainbowmon that I could still earn. So I continued grinding nonstop those last few hours until I got every last reward from the event and I evolve two of my mid tier monsters from 4-star to 5-star.
One of the last rewards I earn from the event is a Light & Dark Scroll. This scrolls is fairly rare and quite valuable. I will go into why this is the case in another episode. Scrolls summon a random monster and up to this point I haven't used the scroll I earn from the event. So I will end this piece by using said scroll now as I'm typing this, write down what monster I got and sign off. Ready ... and I got a Light Bearman. Well I will talk more about this next time. Until then, have fun and thanks for reading.
I mention in episode 1 that monsters come in grades from 1-star to 5-star and all monsters can be evolved into 6-star monsters. What I didn't go into was how much effort it takes to evolve monsters above 3-star. Evolving a monster has two requirements. First the monster needs to be at max level. A monsters max level will depend on its grade. 1-star monsters max level is 15, 2-star monsters is 20 while 6-star monsters is 40. In essence each grade above 1-star adds 5 to its maximum level. Not only do higher grade monsters have a higher level cap, they also have a different experience table. 1-star monsters require 460 xp to go from level 1 to 2 while 6-star monsters require 1150 xp to do the same. Needless to say the higher a monster's grade, the harder it is to level them up to the cap. The other requirement to evolve monsters is that you need other monsters to sacrifice. The monsters being sacrifice needs to be the same grade as the monster you are trying to evolve (though their level doesn't matter). You also need a number of monsters equal to their star grade. That means to evolve a 3-star monster, first it needs to be at level 25 and you need three other monsters that are also 3-star. To evolve a 5-star monster you need five other 5-star monsters! This is a daunting task. The game does help with this pain staking process by giving out Rainbowmons as possible rewards. Rainbowmons are monsters that can never be used in combat but come at max level for its grade so you can immediately evolve it. That makes them extremely valuable.
With that understanding of how evolving and Rainbowmons work, this is what the event is. Every time you evolve a non Rainbowmon monster into a 4-star, 5-star or 6-star monster, you get a free Rainbowmon. There is a limit on how many Rainbowmons you can earn and of course the event is only a limited duration. So to take advantage of this event you need to evolve as many monsters as possible during this 2 week long event. That means leveling up a large number of monsters as quickly as possible. For me that meant playing the game in a mechanical way to manufacture monsters. The story missions is the best way to level up monsters if you have a single monster strong enough to solo it on the hardest difficulty (all monsters fighting on the team earn the same amount of xp). I probably played a set of maps at least 500 times during one week of this event. Spending most my time playing the same map over and over again is so boring but at the same time the reward is so good that I can not NOT play it.
It was kinda hard to make an equivalent example to miniature gaming. But I think I came up with something with a similar vibe. Imagine if someone near you was running an escalation league that used house rules you were not a fan of and require over half your army be newly assembled (and you have to prove it). However the host is giving out really good door prizes. In addition to door prizes every week you show up with two new units that you put together and painted that week, you get a free box set of your choice. I think most hobbyist (if you can afford the initial investment) would endure playing with bad house rules multiple weeks if it nets you 10 free boxes of miniatures.
And that's basically how I feel about the event. I can't say its a bad event because its giving away really valuable rewards. but at the same time its making me play in a way that makes me hate the game. I played the game a lot less these last 2 weeks following the event. I needed some time off. That said, I have made sizeable improvements because of the event. My account level which was 43 before the event is now max at 50. After playing for over 5 months I never had 6-star monsters until this event. I was close to getting my first 6-star before the event but I needed a small boost from early in the event to finally evolve my water knight into a 6-star. She gain a cool aura and was my strong point for leveling everyone else up.
By the end of the event she reach max level 40 from leveling other monsters. It took nearly the rest of the event to get enough monsters to evolve my second 6-star monster, my dark fairy. I almost considered myself done with this achievement, but the event still have a couple hours left and there were a few more Rainbowmon that I could still earn. So I continued grinding nonstop those last few hours until I got every last reward from the event and I evolve two of my mid tier monsters from 4-star to 5-star.
One of the last rewards I earn from the event is a Light & Dark Scroll. This scrolls is fairly rare and quite valuable. I will go into why this is the case in another episode. Scrolls summon a random monster and up to this point I haven't used the scroll I earn from the event. So I will end this piece by using said scroll now as I'm typing this, write down what monster I got and sign off. Ready ... and I got a Light Bearman. Well I will talk more about this next time. Until then, have fun and thanks for reading.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Summoners Journal #1 - My Playstyle
I figure for my first episode of my series combining Summoners War with miniature gaming, I should start by explaining more of how the game works and then go into my own personal play style which is remarkably similar to how I collect miniatures. The monsters come in 5 types: Wind, Water, Fire, Light and Dark. Monsters have versions of them in most if not all of these categories. And while visibly they will look the same, some monster varies greatly depending on its type. For example I have a Water and Dark Fairy. Their base stats are similar (not identical) and their first ability is mostly the same. However their other abilities are completely different. The Water Fairy has a heal and a damaging sleep attack while the Dark Fairy has an arrow attack that could stun and a damaging curse attack that lowers the victim's critical hit rate. A monster's overall power is measurable by its grade. The grades go from 1-star to 6-stars. Higher the grade, more powerful the monster. Monsters have a base or starting grade between 1 to 5 but all of them can be evolved into 6-stars. The game has a turn based combat system. When its a monsters turn to act, they have to used one of their abilities. The first ability can always be used but if the monster has more than one ability then those addition skills will go on a cool down after being used. There is still a lot more to understand about Summoners War but I will leave that for future episodes. For now that should be enough of a primer to get a general idea about play styles.
I've seen some videos done by content creators about what is the most efficient way to play Summoners War. From my own experience I think they are correct. They suggest starting with a goal. There are several dungeons in the game that each require wildly different strategies to complete. Pick one of these that dungeons you want to reach the end first and then build a team to accomplish that. You will probably need to look up what type of abilities you will need such as a healer or a monster with a multi hit basic attack. When you come across a new monster with one of these abilities that you are currently missing, you will either add it to your team or replace a current member of your team if the new monster can perform that role better. For the most part this team of monsters is the only ones you will be using until you can quickly clear the final stage of your goal dungeon. Even if you decide to branch out to play the other dungeons or the story mode areas, you should still only use these monsters. The reason this style is the most efficient way to play is because it takes a lot of effort to strengthen your monsters. By focusing on a small number of monsters at once you can reach their full potential as fast as possible. Clearing out the final stage in the special dungeons (they are called Cairos Dungeons) gives you the most resources you can earn from one place. Once you are able to clear the final stage quickly, you will have the resources needed to transition into anything else you want to do in the game.
Needless to say, this is not how I play the game. Instead I pick monsters that I like the look of, have interesting abilities and/or will fill a void in my lineup. I don't have a set team or even teams. I have a cast of over 20+ monsters that I consider to be my active force. When I attempt to do a mission I choose who from my active force I want to use. In theory since I can tailor what I'm using to take advantage of enemies weaknesses I am able to win fights with weaker monsters. In actuality many in my active force needs a lot of work and there still quite a few holes in my ability to exploit weaknesses. Playing this way is so inefficient because investing in so many monsters at once is very time consuming. Still I enjoy playing the game this way as it allows me to use a wide variety of monsters. My progress is really slow given how much I have played the game but I think this style matches who I am.
Which would makes since, as I have mention, this is similar to how I collect miniatures. I started playing Warriors of Chaos because I love the look of their core troops. After getting enough chaos warriors to fulfill my core requirements I started buying models base on if I like the looks of them or they had rules I wanted to play with. I also never had a standard list. Nearly every time I played Warhammer I wrote up a new list. It was quite rarely for me to ever reuse a list. I quite enjoy making army composition question every game. Did I want to used 2 units of chaos knights in this game or just 1 unit of knights and a chimera? The same is true of my Team Yankee force. I was just buying units and made a new list every time I played. And this will be true Hordes and probably anything else I play. The one exception to this is my idea for a Soviet Team Yankee force. Being more in line with the efficient style of Summoners War, for my Soviet force I will only have a single list and only purchase models that I need for that list. This is how my podcast partner Tracy built his Soviet force. After a few initial games to get an understanding of the rules and how the Soviets work, he made a single list and only brought units that was in that list. Outside of the campaign which had special rules and limitations, that list was the only one he played with. Later in the year he made some adjustments to the list and quickly pick up what he needed for those changes. For me I currently only have an interest in the Soviets because I thought up something a little silly to do with a list. Hint: lots of T-72s are involved! But again the Soviets are the exception. With every other miniature force I much prefer to collect as many different options as possible.
Now that I think about it, this is also how I play many of games as well. I wonder how I develop this habit. I do see some similarities with some classic 80s cartoons I grew up watching like GI Joe, Transformers and M.A.S.K. These types of cartoons have large casts of heroes that do not appear in every episode. Especially with M.A.S.K. as an average episode starts with a problem, following up by selecting which heroes to call in to deal with the problem. In any case, that is about it on discussing my play style. Next time I will talk about the "fun" of the current event. Thanks for reading.
I've seen some videos done by content creators about what is the most efficient way to play Summoners War. From my own experience I think they are correct. They suggest starting with a goal. There are several dungeons in the game that each require wildly different strategies to complete. Pick one of these that dungeons you want to reach the end first and then build a team to accomplish that. You will probably need to look up what type of abilities you will need such as a healer or a monster with a multi hit basic attack. When you come across a new monster with one of these abilities that you are currently missing, you will either add it to your team or replace a current member of your team if the new monster can perform that role better. For the most part this team of monsters is the only ones you will be using until you can quickly clear the final stage of your goal dungeon. Even if you decide to branch out to play the other dungeons or the story mode areas, you should still only use these monsters. The reason this style is the most efficient way to play is because it takes a lot of effort to strengthen your monsters. By focusing on a small number of monsters at once you can reach their full potential as fast as possible. Clearing out the final stage in the special dungeons (they are called Cairos Dungeons) gives you the most resources you can earn from one place. Once you are able to clear the final stage quickly, you will have the resources needed to transition into anything else you want to do in the game.
Needless to say, this is not how I play the game. Instead I pick monsters that I like the look of, have interesting abilities and/or will fill a void in my lineup. I don't have a set team or even teams. I have a cast of over 20+ monsters that I consider to be my active force. When I attempt to do a mission I choose who from my active force I want to use. In theory since I can tailor what I'm using to take advantage of enemies weaknesses I am able to win fights with weaker monsters. In actuality many in my active force needs a lot of work and there still quite a few holes in my ability to exploit weaknesses. Playing this way is so inefficient because investing in so many monsters at once is very time consuming. Still I enjoy playing the game this way as it allows me to use a wide variety of monsters. My progress is really slow given how much I have played the game but I think this style matches who I am.
Which would makes since, as I have mention, this is similar to how I collect miniatures. I started playing Warriors of Chaos because I love the look of their core troops. After getting enough chaos warriors to fulfill my core requirements I started buying models base on if I like the looks of them or they had rules I wanted to play with. I also never had a standard list. Nearly every time I played Warhammer I wrote up a new list. It was quite rarely for me to ever reuse a list. I quite enjoy making army composition question every game. Did I want to used 2 units of chaos knights in this game or just 1 unit of knights and a chimera? The same is true of my Team Yankee force. I was just buying units and made a new list every time I played. And this will be true Hordes and probably anything else I play. The one exception to this is my idea for a Soviet Team Yankee force. Being more in line with the efficient style of Summoners War, for my Soviet force I will only have a single list and only purchase models that I need for that list. This is how my podcast partner Tracy built his Soviet force. After a few initial games to get an understanding of the rules and how the Soviets work, he made a single list and only brought units that was in that list. Outside of the campaign which had special rules and limitations, that list was the only one he played with. Later in the year he made some adjustments to the list and quickly pick up what he needed for those changes. For me I currently only have an interest in the Soviets because I thought up something a little silly to do with a list. Hint: lots of T-72s are involved! But again the Soviets are the exception. With every other miniature force I much prefer to collect as many different options as possible.
Now that I think about it, this is also how I play many of games as well. I wonder how I develop this habit. I do see some similarities with some classic 80s cartoons I grew up watching like GI Joe, Transformers and M.A.S.K. These types of cartoons have large casts of heroes that do not appear in every episode. Especially with M.A.S.K. as an average episode starts with a problem, following up by selecting which heroes to call in to deal with the problem. In any case, that is about it on discussing my play style. Next time I will talk about the "fun" of the current event. Thanks for reading.
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