Starting a Challenge Run

[zhangbob]

Hey Everyone,

I dont know if this is the best place to do it or how many active users are on the Summon Mate forums, but I found I am liking this game WAY more than I have any right to and I want to add some new challenge to the game. I was wondering if anyone wanted to participate in a Challenge Run for Summon Mate.

The Challenge would go something like this:

Hard Mode only
No Revival Jewels (except for maybe Sky Dragon Boss. I still think he is WAY too strong for that point in the game, but can be discussed)
A Level Cap for all your Monsters that will increase after each boss you kill
A Star cap between 1-3(whether it be a single cap for the whole run or a cap that increases after certain bosses)(this cap can be for each monster or a total that is split how you want it between all your monsters)
Record your run then post a link to it here on this forums with your completion time
Can add in the fastest time to kill the world tree boss wins, but I mostly just want to see how people tackle it
Can discuss if any monsters need to be on a ban list

 

I would love to hear people's feedback on what they would want in a run, and how many people would be interested in breathing some new life into this fun game. Please tell me what kind of limitations or changes you would like to have in a challenge run.

This is your chance to find out about new monsters and use your favorites in a little competitive run :3.

 

[zhangbob]

I don't know how restrictive or hard people want to make this, but was also thinking maybe of adding in a Pokemon Nuzlock like element where: you can only recruit first monster that joins you per area, but my issue is I don't want to restrict people from using a monster they really like in this long run.

I like the star cap idea to restrict how strong of monsters you can get and I like the idea of splitting it out between your whole party so you have to think hard how your going to use each star.

The level cap is going to be there to obviously stop people from just curve stomping all the content by grinding the first monster's they find to absurd levels. If a monster goes above the level cap for that area/boss then they will need to be put into storage or absorbed till you kill a boss that highers your cap.

Also Revival Jewels are self explanatory...they are flat out cheating lol. I've tried rushing runs before and maybe im just usually under level by a lot when i get to sky dragon boss in the mountain's right before unlocking Shrine Town, but on Hard that guy is WAY TOO STRONG for that point in the game. you cant fuse to give you options to beat him yet and many of the monster's you get beforehand dont quite have the abilities to stand up to him without LOTS of consumable help, Revival Jewel spamming, or just flat out grinding a ton. I could be wrong as I haven't done too many runs yet, but that's just my take on it so far. Besides him the other bosses I think are fine, but tell me if you think otherwise.

Finally, I was debating on whether or not to do this but I dont think we should restrict size. I like the idea that people use whatever monster they want as long as it isnt too OP.

[zhangbob]

If anyone doesn't know how or needs help setting up a way to play on your pc or recording your footage I can put steps up here when I have a bit more time. I use Nox Player (a free phone IOS emulator for Windows) and I use Stream Labs to record my screen, but you can use any screen recording software. I just use StreamLabs cause I stream for Twitch as well and its free.

[1oldtymer]

I use Team Viewer (free) to cast my tablet to my PC, and then I  have a few different screen recorders, but usually use Corel's VideoStudio to record.  Someplace in one of the forums we have some posts on the topic--probably we should create topic someplace and copy all of similar ones into that topic.

[Mastertrek]

Well, I never used Revival Jewels while playing the game.. But I found Hard Mode not fun to try as without excess grind there is no place for fun fights. I'm not playing much games atm.

[zhangbob]

On Hard you can be very tempted to use them when a boss almost KOs your whole team turn one.

I look at hard mode a different way. I haven't played easy/normal but if Hard mode mobs have 2.5x HP and Damage then I cant imagine how boring the other modes are. A lot of normal encounters are still very easy on hard, but the bosses I see is where the planning and fun comes in.

You can excessively grind to be a boss, but I would find that tremendously boring. What I have done in my play throughs so far is find abilities from other monsters and put them on my party to give me the utility to be each boss instead of grinding for sheer numbers on the boss. I typically have 2 damage dealters, a buff/debuffer, and a caster who minorly assists with heals and debuffing. You can do other comps but I find this to my ideal play style. Just finished the mystery forest (the satan area) with a lvl 20 and the others lvl 15 and utterly stomped the boss on Hard. That same team is without healing yet is half way up the Goddess Castle, but they will have to go back soon. But you can do anything with a high + from breeding too just like too high a level from grinding. Which is why I want to limit both severely to make the encounters hard, but thought provoking aka also turn it into kind of a resource management.

If Hard Mode isn't fun for you I understand. It isn't going to be for everyone on what is supposed to be a casual phone game. I'll give the thread a few more days to see if there's any community for this otherwise I might just do the run myself and post a finished video of it or move on idk. I am a game developer, maybe if I am up for it and the game devs for this are done developing for it I can take over and make more content and add in some way for repeatable fun once the story is over. That's a big if though.

[1oldtymer]

@zhangbob, you might take a look at Eternal Concord (we have some posts somewhere) for the kind of interesting battles you mention.  The arena battles in that game are not the usual reward for grinding, and have some twists and fun.  The game itself is good (and the developer is very responsive should you wish to contact him).  But you are quite right about the curse of becoming too powerful.  I had some enjoyable battles in some of the games on this site, but sometimes I did too much grinding and missed out on the thoughtful strategies needed to defeat a tough monster.  Yes, it is possible with discipline to not give in to becoming OP, but at times my resolve just melts away.

 

[Mastertrek]

@zhangbob, well, if you're looking for a game so hard (but fun for the most part), try Dragon's Blade. There is absolutely no way to beat the game without a huge amount of time, luck and grind.

 

Some games are made in a way to require Grind to do. I may try beating it on Hard Mode (lost a Save for the game). If you think it is not challenging enough, try using only one (underleveled) Monster to beat the game. Or use a party of the weakest monsters in the game

I cleared sone games while restricting myself (like Nuzlocke Pokémon, beating some FF/DQ games at as low Level as possible.. But all of them had fun ways to deal with Enemies/Bosses.)