powerset suggestion Mastermind Primary Powerset Suggestion: Slimes!

[TygerDarkstorm]

11 minutes ago, Jeagan said:

I think people are overthinking this a lot, if the damage of the base powers is balanced against having the temps out it shouldn't be all that big of a deal. Have the basic powers of the henchman, meaning the powers they start with, be weaker than the ones other henchmen types start with, and have the upgrade powers which the temp pets don't get access to be slightly stronger. Then the temps deal less damage, while the henchmen are still on the average damage curve. There are a bunch of ways to adjust for the additional damage, especially considering the temporary pets cannot be enhanced in any way.

So long as the henchmen splitting into the smaller slimes doesn't stop me from having controllable henchmen (as that's why I play an MM), then I'm not totally opposed to the slime splitting idea. Initially your idea kinda reads like you can't resummon your controllable henchies once they've split off, but I'm sure this has probably been clarified through your discussion with Rudra; I admittedly haven't gone through all of that discussion.  Dozens of uncontrollable pets running around though isn't necessarily OP, just annoying for aggro drawing purposes. Mostly I feel like it would be an issue with the coding/game engine.

 

Like I said, I'm not opposed to the idea at all. I know we won't get it, but it would be neat to see what the dev's think of its plausibility. There have been many, many MM primary suggestions, as I'm sure you've seen; this one stands out as one of the better, more interesting and unique ideas. I think it would be super fun to play and would be a natural pairing for /Marine

[Jeagan]

The temporary pets wouldn't prevent the summoning of your base henchmen, I'm not really sure how that's being interpreted in what I wrote 😕 It's a power effect of your pets, not a direct power of the Mastermind.

 

I really wish we would get a new MM powerset, they are extremely stagnant and that makes me sad.

[TygerDarkstorm]

11 minutes ago, Jeagan said:

The temporary pets wouldn't prevent the summoning of your base henchmen, I'm not really sure how that's being interpreted in what I wrote 😕 It's a power effect of your pets, not a direct power of the Mastermind.

 

I really wish we would get a new MM powerset, they are extremely stagnant and that makes me sad.

Apparently my reading comprehension skills need some work then; my apologies.

 

And agreed. MM's are in desperate need of a new primary and for the primaries who didn't get the update pass to also receive one (especially poor Beasts). I do hope we get some dev attention soon for a new primary.

[Rudra]

There is another concern with the split slimes. I just ran an Illusion Controller on the test server to verify, but pets of pets don't count for xp. You can see it on the mission where the Dream Doctor fights alongside your character. He summons a phantasm and it summons a fighting decoy, and your xp from defeats start wildly fluctuating. (Edit yet again: I think inf' does too, but I'm running from memory. On the test server test though, my inf' gains didn't drop with the Phantasm and Decoy Phantasm.) On the test server with the Illusion Controller I threw together to check, whatever target the decoy phantasm was damaging, I got less xp from. Equal level Council minions were awarding 4168 xp upon defeat, but with the decoy doing damage, the xp dropped as low as 2779. So the split slimes from the summoned slimes' defeats will reduce gained xp depending on how much of the damage the enemy takes is from them. And since the spawned slimes from the summoned slimes are also pets summoned by pets rather than summoned by the MM himself/herself/themselves/itself, they will also likely reduce xp gains. (Edit again: And unlike the Phantasm's single Decoy Phantasm, you can generate a lot of pet of pets mobs. That can, won't necessarily, but can neuter xp gains. Not sure about inf' gains, because I only checked on the Controller with the single decoy, and inf' didn't drop.)

 

To ensure the validity of my test, I attacked a reference group of Council without pets and then the test group of Council with just my Phantasm and its summoned decoy.

 

Edited December 2 by Rudra
Edited to correct "2889" to "2779".

[Jeagan]

I don't have an answer for that. I don't know if the stuff that follows you around on maps count as henchman, despite having different classifications, and as there are no henchmen that summon other pets I don't know if it applies the same way. The closest I am aware is the Demon Summoning power Hell on Earth, which gets applied to a pet and summons additional temporary pets, but I assume those are still connected to the MM rather than the pet. I would figure you could set up the split spawning of slimes to work similarly, but I just don't know.

[Rudra]

On 12/2/2024 at 1:35 PM, Jeagan said:

I don't have an answer for that. I don't know if the stuff that follows you around on maps count as henchman, despite having different classifications, and as there are no henchmen that summon other pets I don't know if it applies the same way. The closest I am aware is the Demon Summoning power Hell on Earth, which gets applied to a pet and summons additional temporary pets, but I assume those are still connected to the MM rather than the pet. I would figure you could set up the split spawning of slimes to work similarly, but I just don't know.

NPCs following you seem to be classed as pets. And the pets they summon, if they all follow Dream Doctor's example, don't count as part of the team for xp gains. Dream Doctor is the only NPC I am aware of that summons pets that summon pets. I haven't bothered to check to see what Desdemona's summons do though, since I make it a point to not free her from anything until the map is cleared.

 

Edit: Just checked Desdemona. And the results are... inconsistent. Sometimes I see a reduction in xp and other times I don't. There was a definite drop in rewards from bosses, but didn't really see any losses from minions. Checked Desdemona again, and yes, her pets reduce both the xp and the inf' gained from enemies depending on how much damage her pets did. If Desdemona defeats the target by herself, you get full rewards. (And when you leave her as a boss, she can routinely defeat minions before her pets touch them.)

 

Edited December 4 by Rudra

[Jeagan]

You may be able to get around this issue by having something akin to Hellfire, which summons temp pets over time, but change the trigger from a timer to the target dying. Then the things that are summoned are from the Mastermind, rather than the pet itself.