Proposal: Fixing mind control mechanic once and for all

[Asher 0]

Problem: Mind control ability with units such as parasite swarm, night guard etc. is highly inconsistent throughout the game and even same units on different maps behave differently. Another problem is the confusing description "Can control units up to 150 power cost" for example. How is a player supposed to know how much power enemies cost? 

Solution: 

1. Nightguard can swap small, medium and large T1 and T2 units
2. Parasite swarm small, medium, large T1, T2 and T3 units
3. Mind Weaver small, medium, large, x-large T1, T2 and T3 units (upgrades to T4 units)
4. Mind Control (spell) small, medium, large, x-large T1, T2, T3 and T4 units
5. Remove lost souls mind control immunity 
6. If there are bosses and/or sub bosses which shouldn't be mind controlled (eg: raven ships from the slave master map) add leader immunity
7. Of course fix the fact that some clear t3 units spawn as t2 units on some maps like stone warriors, twilight horrors etc.

 

This would remove the power cost thing from the equation completely and make these mechanics behave the same on every map.

 

PS Of course tiers and sizes are not set in stone, feel free to play around with them if you find them too strong / weak. The point is that the only thing that dictates whether or not a creature can be mind controlled should be its size and its orb count. 

 

Edited September 16, 2021 by Asher

[Majora 1332]

We are very much aware of this issue, but have to carefully decide which units Nightguard (for example) should be allowed to take over, since its a very common strategy for PvE. One step in this direction is adding power costs and orbs to every PvE unit (and building, Matter Mastery), so we at least get the option to change this. As for Lost Souls Mind Control immunity, this was a last minute addition from the original developers from EA, probably once they realized how problematic Nightguard was. 

[Ggoblin 27]

11 hours ago, Majora said:

 One step in this direction is adding power costs and orbs to every PvE unit (and building, Matter Mastery), so we at least get the option to change this.

Yes, please add orbs and costs, I'd also like it if everything that can attack had the attack power displayed, including towers.

It'd also be nice if the same unit had the same cost across maps and different units never get grouped under the same image (like stonekin hurler + stonekin warrior being displayed as 2 stonekin hurlers).

[Asher 0]

15 hours ago, Majora said:

We are very much aware of this issue, but have to carefully decide which units Nightguard (for example) should be allowed to take over, since its a very common strategy for PvE. One step in this direction is adding power costs and orbs to every PvE unit (and building, Matter Mastery), so we at least get the option to change this. As for Lost Souls Mind Control immunity, this was a last minute addition from the original developers from EA, probably once they realized how problematic Nightguard was. 

 

Yeah adding visibility to the enemy units would be great. Right now it's confusing what you can / cannot capture. The problem with giving all lost souls just blanket mind control immunity is that it completely makes all mind control abilities other than night guard's completely useless. So you can't use mind control, a 300 power t4 spell to capture a lost dancer for example. Kind of broken.

[Cocofang 347]

The entire takeover mechanic was never functionally implemented into the game. It's an incomplete hackjob full of half measures.
LS being immune to it is pretty much an admission of "This is so fucked and not even finished but we don't have the resources to fix existing entities. Let's just block it for now ...". The current "implementation" has multiple extremely powerful effects built into it that aren't even considered most of the time.

Takeover insta-kills the targeted entity. So it immediately removes a major threat from the field, which is incredibly potent by itself.
Takeover goes even further and adds the entity that was just immediately removed from the opposing force to the army of the player. It's a massive shift in military strength.

But those two things are pretty much inherent to a takeover mechanic. Except if you implemented something like a HP threshold and you can only take over weakened entities or something. But the real issues begin afterwards, which are unique to Skylords.

Fundamentally speaking, every permanent entity that the player can create binds energy for as long as its on the field. Takeover undermines that by granting assets that are entirely unbound and just from that perspective alone superior to regularly summoned entities. The downside being that they don't grant any ground presence, which is easy to negate by simply mixing in one regularly summoned unit.

Nightguard further complicates that by being a T1 unit that can grant access to entities vastly surpassing anything else on that tier by orders of magnitudes. This instantly subverts any maps that attempt to challenge the players with strong opposition on T1. It's almost comparable as if cards like Fathom Lord, Swamp Drake, Stone Warrior or other units with equivalent strength were spells instead of units. Also important to consider that PvE-versions of units are sometimes stronger than card-versions of them. So just because Windhunter is T2 for the player, the PvE-Windhunter is clearly much more powerful equivalent to T3. Because of its on-hit paralyze definitely in the upper echelons, if not low T4.

Entities with strength that is equivalent to a player summoned T3 unit, completely energy-unbound and also while insta-killing that entity on the enemies side is just obscene. Even if you look at T2, disregarding Harvester, there are already exceptionally powerful units present and we are talking about commanding those under the aforementioned conditions.

There is the argument that Nightguard would be dead if takeover was fixed but that just shows how warped the perception of power has become. Even if it could only swap units that are very strictly equivalent to T2 and 150 energy, you'd still be objectively trading up a whole lot. Not only in military power and detrimental effect on the enemy but also economically. Even if takeover was functioning properly Nightguard would be extremely powerful.

So things that have to be considered to actually integrate takeover appropriately into the design of Skylords are:

• Bound energy. Should taken over entities be exempt from that?
• Entity power. Which unit-power is reasonable to have access to at which point in the game?
• Takeover conditions. Should there be additional conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to take over an entity?
• Clarity. How do you effectively and intuitively communicate to the player which entities can be taken over without them having to look it up externally?

[Asher 0]

FYI windhunter is specifically immune to mind control. You can't even take him over with a t4 mind control spell. At least the few that I tried in rPVE. Maybe there are some maps where he isn't.

[Cocofang 347]

Yes, I know. It was just an example on how <Unit name> =/= <Unit name> when it comes to gauging PvE-entities power compared to player-entities.

[thisismyname 0]

The one thing, that is wrong with mind crontrol and matter masery is, that they occasionally consume your power and card charge even when things have resistance, leaving you completely open to attack.

[LEBOVIN 284]

Can you reproduce a case where it happens for matter mastery ?

[Metagross31 491]

Spawnbuildings (especially the small ones like the bandit tents), unless it got fixed in one of the previous patches.

[Volin 507]

2 hours ago, Metagross31 said:

Spawnbuildings

This.

Any (fake) spawner

[Mynoduesp 230]

9 hours ago, thisismyname said:

The one thing, that is wrong with mind crontrol and matter masery is, that they occasionally consume your power and card charge even when things have resistance, leaving you completely open to attack.

These targets are not untargetable, but immune to the abilities effect. There's nothing wrong with consuming power and charge in that case.

The other edge of this knife is, that these immunities must be clearly stated. Which is... debatable. ^^

[LEBOVIN 284]

I am pretty sure all the buildings are immune against a wasted matter mastery nowadays. Hence I like to see some proof that one of the building cases was missed. Spawners in particular should definitely be immune since the change that prevented freezing them.

Edited January 19, 2022 by LEBOVIN