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Overhaul Myth Minions and How They Work

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Jul 17, 2010
14
In other games I've played, classes that specialize in summoning minions or utilizing pets are often very fun to play and are excellent at soloing. I believe this was the intention for the Myth school, but it did not work out that way. Fact is, the "minion" system in this game is just unappealing and not at all fun to use. From my experience it is actually pretty rare to even see someone use a minion. In most cases, players would rather find another player to help them than use a minion.

First you must find the card and have the pips to summon a minion. Then you and your minion must both begin saving up pips before either of you can do anything. While your minion is out, you can pretty much forget about using traps. You never know when they will decide to attack, and you can't tell them to cut it out when they do. Most minions have small pools of health, and get destroyed by attacks that hit everything such as Tempest and Fire Dragon.

Myth is supposed to be a school that specializes in minions, but minions just aren't fun. I honestly see a lot of potential in the Myth school. If minions were to be made better, Myth could become one of the funnest schools to play. I wanted to present some ideas that would make the minion system in this game less of a chore, and something you would want to actually use:

  • Allow Conjurers to have direct control over their minions in battle.
  • Make it so that a summoned minion follows you in the over world (similar to companions in Khyrsalis) and join fights with you. If the minion is defeated in the fight, you must summon a new one. If the new minion survives the fight it was summoned in, it will follow you again.
  • Make it so that ALL minions start with the amount of pips that was required to summon them.
  • Give minions unique spells that aren't available to players or even monsters.This would make them more interesting and fun to use. You may actually want to use your minion instead of asking another player for help.
  • Make the stats of minions similar to a player preforming the same role. A damage minion would have a deck of strong attacks, and high boosts to damage, accuracy, and pip chance. However, they would have relatively low health and little to no resistance. A "Tank" minion would have relatively high health, universal resistance, and incoming healing, but their deck would consist mostly of taunts and wards.
  • Give Myth minions more frequently. We get too many early game, and too few late game. Remove all the current minions and make it so that we get one minion per world on average. That minion should be strong enough to fight everything in that world. Also make it so that minions are exempt from triggering boss cheats.
  • If these updates were implemented, I'd be fine with these new minions becoming "No-PvP". Myth is very good on their own in the arena.

Mastermind
Jan 05, 2014
300
I agree in general, but feel the issue is more than just myth minions. Minions in general are nearly useless and could seriously use a general rewrite in their stats and AI. Henchmen are much the same. They need better defined roles, more reliable behavior, and perhaps some way of telling them what spell to cast (or better yet, what spells NOT to cast). More health wouldn't hurt, all too often minions die the first time an enemy decides to attack them. Minions ought to be a whole new area of gameplay, but they aren't, because it takes very little experience using them before they come to be seen as a complete waste of pips.

Survivor
Jan 06, 2014
45
It does need a big overhaul so maybe you could fix the Myth School like you did with the Fire one in the last update? Maybe, we could fix some things into each school if there's a fault that was suppose to be the design of the school, but it failed.

Defender
Mar 30, 2010
175
Gamlic on Mar 21, 2014 wrote:
In other games I've played, classes that specialize in summoning minions or utilizing pets are often very fun to play and are excellent at soloing. I believe this was the intention for the Myth school, but it did not work out that way. Fact is, the "minion" system in this game is just unappealing and not at all fun to use. From my experience it is actually pretty rare to even see someone use a minion. In most cases, players would rather find another player to help them than use a minion.

First you must find the card and have the pips to summon a minion. Then you and your minion must both begin saving up pips before either of you can do anything. While your minion is out, you can pretty much forget about using traps. You never know when they will decide to attack, and you can't tell them to cut it out when they do. Most minions have small pools of health, and get destroyed by attacks that hit everything such as Tempest and Fire Dragon.

Myth is supposed to be a school that specializes in minions, but minions just aren't fun. I honestly see a lot of potential in the Myth school. If minions were to be made better, Myth could become one of the funnest schools to play. I wanted to present some ideas that would make the minion system in this game less of a chore, and something you would want to actually use:

  • Allow Conjurers to have direct control over their minions in battle.
  • Make it so that a summoned minion follows you in the over world (similar to companions in Khyrsalis) and join fights with you. If the minion is defeated in the fight, you must summon a new one. If the new minion survives the fight it was summoned in, it will follow you again.
  • Make it so that ALL minions start with the amount of pips that was required to summon them.
  • Give minions unique spells that aren't available to players or even monsters.This would make them more interesting and fun to use. You may actually want to use your minion instead of asking another player for help.
  • Make the stats of minions similar to a player preforming the same role. A damage minion would have a deck of strong attacks, and high boosts to damage, accuracy, and pip chance. However, they would have relatively low health and little to no resistance. A "Tank" minion would have relatively high health, universal resistance, and incoming healing, but their deck would consist mostly of taunts and wards.
  • Give Myth minions more frequently. We get too many early game, and too few late game. Remove all the current minions and make it so that we get one minion per world on average. That minion should be strong enough to fight everything in that world. Also make it so that minions are exempt from triggering boss cheats.
  • If these updates were implemented, I'd be fine with these new minions becoming "No-PvP". Myth is very good on their own in the arena.
I really don't agree with you most of the time, but I LOVE this post you wrote.

I agree with just about everything you wrote.

I love playing my but honestly some of their best utility spells are pre mooshu lol. The class has been forgetten about and it's a shame because they could be really unique with minions that aren't worthless like most of the ones they have now.

Give something worthwhile!

Survivor
Jul 17, 2010
14
DanTheTerrible on Mar 21, 2014 wrote:
I agree in general, but feel the issue is more than just myth minions. Minions in general are nearly useless and could seriously use a general rewrite in their stats and AI. Henchmen are much the same. They need better defined roles, more reliable behavior, and perhaps some way of telling them what spell to cast (or better yet, what spells NOT to cast). More health wouldn't hurt, all too often minions die the first time an enemy decides to attack them. Minions ought to be a whole new area of gameplay, but they aren't, because it takes very little experience using them before they come to be seen as a complete waste of pips.
I feel the same way. I was actually a bit indecisive as to whether or not I should make a thread about Myth minions or just minions in general. I have no idea what the technical capabilities of KingsIsle are these days, but if it is possible I would love for them to improve all minions. I decided to emphasize Myth since minions were supposed to be their specialty, but most of the points I listed could easily apply to other school's minions as well.

Defender
Jan 02, 2011
138
Gamlic on Mar 22, 2014 wrote:
I feel the same way. I was actually a bit indecisive as to whether or not I should make a thread about Myth minions or just minions in general. I have no idea what the technical capabilities of KingsIsle are these days, but if it is possible I would love for them to improve all minions. I decided to emphasize Myth since minions were supposed to be their specialty, but most of the points I listed could easily apply to other school's minions as well.
>I have no idea what the technical capabilities of KingsIsle are these days

They have just as much in the way of skilled programers as any other online game does. And they have plenty of money to hire top talent if they don't already have it on board.

Problem is, overhauling the minions the way that's being asked isn't a simple project.

KI doesn't have unlimited staff, so they'd need to pull some off of other projects.

Which do you think is more important: redoing minions or creating a new world (for example)

Explorer
Jun 10, 2012
53
Myth minions can be helpful sometimes. I have been saved plenty of times by my minions. As I get higher in lvl i have had less need of minions. I only use minions now for tough boss fights that will take some time even without the minion.
I don't really think they need to be changed much, like following your wizard around (though that would look cool) Maybe change the spells and goals of the minions. Like make one minion a healer, one minion an attacker, one minion a tank (though the Minotaur could be considered a tank) In my opinion that would make them more helpful, but that would be a pain to change.
~AngelcatDemondog

Survivor
Jul 17, 2010
14
tanda1 on Mar 23, 2014 wrote:
>I have no idea what the technical capabilities of KingsIsle are these days

They have just as much in the way of skilled programers as any other online game does. And they have plenty of money to hire top talent if they don't already have it on board.

Problem is, overhauling the minions the way that's being asked isn't a simple project.

KI doesn't have unlimited staff, so they'd need to pull some off of other projects.

Which do you think is more important: redoing minions or creating a new world (for example)
I know that overhauling minions would be a large endeavor, and that it would be very costly to do. I also know that it is not a simple project. The minion system, as it currently is, has been in the game pretty much since the beginning. Going back and fixing it now would be very difficult from a technical standpoint. I suppose I should of said that I have no idea whether or not they are willing to do so. I don't doubt their capabilities, especially since I play Pirate101.

I am very fond of the companion system in Pirate101. You basically always have a team of controllable units who fight alongside your character. Uncontrolled minions do exist in that game as well. However, the minions scale with the level of the unit that summoned them (higher leveled summoner = higher leveled minion) and these summoned minions don't take up a "player slot" the way Wizard101 minions take a spot in the dueling circle. I would love to see something similar applied to the minions of Wizard101. In fact, I wish minions in this game were more similar to Pirate101 companions.

I absolutely believe that redoing minions is more important than a new world. In time, a "new" world will no longer be new. It will just be another area our wizards pass through on their way to max level. Going back to fix old mechanics improves the quality of the game as a whole, and has an everlasting effect.

I'm not saying they should halt part 2 of Khrysalis, of course, since that it already planned and likely close to release. However, I do think an overhaul of minions should be the next "Team Up/Dungeon Recall": A mechanic that improves the entirety of the game. Although in this case it would be fixing something I feel is broken rather than introducing something new.