Probably still about 1-2 weeks left on this build, but most of that will be testing, the vast majority of the development work is complete.
I wanted to explain a bit and underline what's going on the new build. Not all of this will be new information, but much of it will be, and even if it isn't new, now it's all in one place.
Starting with this coming build, all summoners will begin the game with 2 Relic Upgrades, based on which relic they choose. The upgrades are somewhat themed on the relic in question. Each relic begins with 2 different ones not shared with other relics (at least at the moment), so you have access to 14 of the available upgrades, in some combination or another, right away.
HOWEVER: Up until this point, every relic had been floated the Capacity Up 1 and Capacity Up 2 upgrades, which each add +1 to your stable capacity. Since the relics have real upgrades now, these have been removed! Thus, the starting stable size is now 6, down from 8. It will be necessary to utilize your chosen relic's unique upgrades in order to compensate for this.
How do you get more upgrades? Easy enough: gain levels! At Levels 5, 15, 25, and so on, you will gain the ability to freely choose any relic upgrade in the game to receive, (Don't get toooo comfy with this too quickly, this is one of the things most likely to change, though it may not be for awhile.) If you really miss the 7th and 8th stable slots, you can get them back at Level 5 and 15 respectively. You can even get a 9th at Level 25, though I confess by then it may not be much use in the current content.
So, how do all these relic upgrades work with enemy summoners?
The first answer is that all of them do, and in most cases, quite literally. You will see summoners who have intelligently chosen and utilized Soul Armor, summoners who in tight circumstances will Consume their allies, and others who will happily take advantage of techniques such as Quick Summon, Far Summon, etc.
But even the ones you might not expect an AI to be affected by will have an impact, such as S.E.P.I. (additional Credits found per floor), Fusion Saver (discount on Fuse Demons' cost), etc.
How? Answering that requires a bit of explanation of how enemy summoners generate.
In short, when an enemy summoner is spawned, he receives minions based on their simulated trek through the Tower to reach the point where you encountered them.
They pick demons from the list of demons matching their particular preferences from among those they could have encountered up to that point (including modified versions and even uniques) to make up their original stable.Then, they use Fuse Demons and Copy Ability on their party certain numbers of times. The primary factor in how many of each is the enemy summoner's level, though this caps relatively quickly (after all, the cost of these abilities is based on level itself, you won't necessarily have more of them in your active party just because you're higher level, inevitably, some of the earlier targets of them have died or been fused themselves.) If you've run into enemy summoners in the past, you already know they tend to be at least reasonably intelligent about these choices. They also have certain preferences they exercise, reflected in specific modifiers or types of abilities being favored, much like how players themselves usually have builds or themes in mind.
Many relic upgrades operate for the AI by converting their effect into bonus Fuse Demon and/or Copy Ability results, since many of the upgrades in fact just translate to extra Credits (thus, the summoner would have more available to use on these abilities.) Here's a full listing of how the AI handles specific upgrades, and when it may not be clear, the reason why:
Soul Armor (copy demon's HP/Speed mods and resistances to yourself):
* AI chooses a demon with a great resistance table that does not conflict with its resistance preferences and copies it. Will never target a demon with < 100% Speed. Modified demons are also included in this.
* REDUCES Fuse Demon and Copy Ability usages by 37 and 38% each, due to the great cost of using Soul Armor on demons with awesome resistance tables.
* As a note, the AI tends to make really, really good choices with this. Breska and Jayle may prove to be entirely different experiences now.
Fusion Saver (Reduces cost of Fuse Demons by 25%.):
* AI receives 25% more Fuse Demon usages.
Quick Summon (Summon is now a free action with a 1 turn cooldown):
* AI uses this exactly as described.
Quick Dismiss (Dismiss is now a free action with a 1 turn cooldown):
* AI uses this exactly as described.
Transpose Soul (Can sacrifice demons to choose and learn an ability from their modifier's list):
* Summoner will receive abilities from modifier lists of preferred demons that may not be available via normal Copy. Beware of Ludoc and his new tricks...
* REDUCES Fuse Demon and Copy Ability usages by 12% and 13% each, due to the cost of using Transpose Soul.
Consume (Gain HP and SP when you use Delete Demon):
* AI will use on its lowest HP demon when at critical health.
* AI will devour any critically wounded demons if significantly damaged or very low on SP.
* AI will, if it does not also know Quick Dismiss, use this instead of Dismiss if the target is critically wounded and the summoner would benefit significantly. (This is because Delete is a free action, Dismiss without Quick Dismiss is not.)
Revelation (Spend Credits to teach a demon a random ability from its fusion modifier's list):
* AI will sometimes use this in place of Copy Ability, particularly for demons it cannot provide good abilities for from Copy Ability.
* Testing confirms this tends to result in significantly better AI designed ability sets for demons, but don't take my word for it, just ask Paracelsus.
Nightingale (Speeds up inactive demon recovery rates):
* Works as described for the AI.
Enemy Sense (Detect enemies on the map, may reveal additional and possibly quite rare enemies upon fully exploring levels):
* Increases the level of the summoner and all demons by 10%, reflecting the additional XP gained.
* Significantly increases the odds of 'cryptid' demons being selected for the summoner's stable.
* Notably, does NOT cause the summoner to home in your location.
It'd be neat, but it'd become something you'd have to wiki or learn the hard way after Lioth ambushes you mid-fight for the 6th time. Far Summon I, II, III (Increase range of Summon by 2, 4, or 6):
* AI uses this as expected.
Stock Expand I through VI (Increases stable size by 1 to 6 based on rank):
* AI uses this as expected.
Copy Saver (Reduces the cost of Copy Ability by 25%):
* AI receives 25% more Copy Ability usages.
Restore Saver (Reduces the cost of Restore Demon by 25%):
Recycle (Gain Credits when you use Delete Demon):
Translator (Removes Credit cost penalty for using Copy Ability on the summoner):
Item Sense (Reveals items on map, spawns extra items upon fully exploring a level):
S.E.P.I. (Spawns Credits upon fully exploring a level):
* AI receives 12% more Fuse Demon usages.
* AI receives 13% more Copy Ability usages.
* Both of the above bonuses are applied per upgrade from this list.
* In essence, the AI is being granted extra Credits to use on Fuse Demon and Copy Ability, based on savings or extra loot found due to these upgrades.
Whew, I think that's about everything.
We're getting close! Thanks for your patience everyone, I tend not to like long build cycles, but major feature implementations sometimes make them unavoidable. Cheers!
It refers to demon count, but the base amount is 6, so this increases the total to 7-12.