[Reported] "No Target Available" with (certain) Summoners

Bug Reports
1

Obviously, before you can summon a troop in battle you need an empty slot to hold the troop, or nothing happens. But if you attempt to cast a summon spell without an empty slot, certain summoners will simply ignore the summon while processing their other effects, while other summoners will declare “No Target Available” upon casting.

Their spells function correctly in all cases, it’s the display of this “No Target Available” message that’s the inconsistent part.

For example:

  • If you cast Hyena and kill a target, then unless Hyena was literally the only troop on your team it will display “No Target Available” up to 3 times – even if it successfully summoned at least 1 Hyena.
  • If you cast Cedric Sparklesack with all ally slots filled, it will shuffle the enemy team and charm an enemy, but DOES NOT declare “No Target Available” when attempting to summon. (Ironically, Cedric will display the “No Target Available” message if the Charm damage fails, but not if the summon fails)

This varies per individual troop – implying some spells are scripted to explicitly check for an empty slot before summoning (and therefore avoid the error message) while other spells will attempt the summon regardless (prompting the error message if there’s no empty slot).

This is potentially a long list of affected troops, so any help documenting them will be appreciated!

Summoners that may display "No Target Available"

Troops

  • Chaos Hound (random / no secondary effects)
  • Fakyr the Wise
  • Fel’Dras
  • Hyena (even if just 1 or 2 Hyenas were summoned)
  • Kobra
  • Krystenax
  • Kuarg the Dread
  • Lyriath (35% chance)
  • Mecha Rat
  • Nexus Portal
  • Royal Engineer
  • Tink Steamwhistle
  • Umbral Portal
  • Uvhash-Ka
  • Void Portal
  • Winged Bison (40% chance)

Weapons

  • Amethyst Band
  • Daemonomicon (no secondary effects, excluding affixes)
  • Daisy’s Cudgel
  • Ebon’s Hammer
  • Flail of Gaard
  • Scarab Blade
  • Urskayan Crown
Summoners who never display this message
  • Alderfather
  • Anubite Warrior
  • Ancestor Brodir
  • Angry Mob
  • Baba Yaga
  • Bonebinder
  • Book of Secrets
  • Catterfly
  • Cedric Sparklesack
  • Cocoon
  • Copycat
  • Corrupt Sorceress
  • Dark Master
  • Dokkalfar
  • Dragon Eggs
  • Dragonite Gnome
  • Egg Thief
  • Emperinazara
  • Erinyes
  • Essencia (sole effect without Dragon Spirit on team)
  • Falconer
  • Fell Dragon Egg
  • Horned Hag
  • Hyndla Frostcrown
  • King Avelorn
  • King Highforge
  • Morterra
  • Necrezza
  • Orion’s Herald
  • Pet Gnome
  • Prince Ethoras
  • Princess Elspeth
  • Queen Moonclaw
  • Queen’s Herald
  • Sir Gwayne
  • Snaker Charmer
  • Spiritdancer
  • Starflower
  • Summoner
  • Sunbird
  • The Infernal Machine
  • The Mirror Queen
  • Tome of Evil
  • Tracker
  • Ulf Harrigan
  • Vanya Soulmourn
  • Watch Mother

Weapons

  • Gobsticker
  • Ice Sapphire
  • Jar of Eyes
  • Nysha’s Skull
  • Riftblade
  • Secrets of the Crypt
  • Staff of Storms
  • Urskine Cleaver
  • Wild Cleaver
Unresearched

Troops I don’t own:

  • Abyssinia
  • Despond
  • Euryali
  • Flaming Oni
  • Gar’Nok
  • Hatir & Skroll
  • Mother of Darkness
  • Oneiros
  • Queen of Sin
  • Shade of Zorn
  • Skadi
  • The Archduke
  • The Widow Queen
  • Tian Yi
  • Vash’Dagon
  • Xathenos

Weapons I don’t own:

  • Arboreal Crystal
  • Beastly Claw
  • Chalice of Eyes
  • Cobaltine Wand
  • Crown of Horns
  • Emerald Blade
  • Emperina’s Tooth
  • Eye of Orion
  • Fist of Heaven
  • Jelly Shot
  • Mystery Egg
  • Mystic Manuscript
  • Obsidian Libram
  • Scaleguard Protector
  • Sharpfang
  • String of Teeth
  • The Engineer’s Drill
  • Tomb Lord’s Crook
  • Tome of Sin
  • Tome of Spores
  • Twin Claws

Low probability summons
(if “No Target Available” appears even once then the test is a success, otherwise many, MANY tests are required to imply the message does not appear)

  • Nocturnia (20% per cast)
  • Pyggra (20% per cast)
  • Sacrificial Priest (30% per cast)
2 Likes
2

I’ve also noticed this discrepancy in different weapons that have a summon as part of their spell.

3

Okay, I have completed my testing with all the summoners I have access to.

for Troops:

  • At least 16 summoners will display “No Target Available” if the summon fails
  • At least 47 summoners do not

for Weapons:

  • At least 7 weapons display “no target available” if the summon fails.
  • At least 9 weapons do not.

On average, most summoner Troops do not yield a “no target” message if there is no empty slot. Weapons have no consistency, even though a large number of them are Raid / Tower event weapons (i.e. all to the same formula of “explode Gems + grant status effect + summon”)

Special cases:

  • Princess Elspeth, Sacrificial Priest, and Sunbird involve killing an ally before summoning. Under normal conditions this would be impossible to test, however, if paired with a Hero using the “Backup” talent, it is possible to watch for a Bandit being summoned (instead of the intended troop).
3 Likes
4

Hello :slight_smile:

@Stratelier
I’ve let the development team know about this “No Target Available” inconsistency.

I’ve also made a quality of life request for this to be consistent across the summoning troops.

If you end up building a list that would help a lot! :slight_smile:

2 Likes
5

By now I’ve edited it in to my first post. I might compile it into a spreadsheet later, because a few Troops here and there are more difficult to research than others…

I would suggest the following internal guidelines:

  • In general, a spell that combines a summon with other effects (e.g. Kobra, Spiritdancer) SHOULD NOT display “No Target Available” if the summon fails. Which is already the case with the majority of summoners (but not all).
  • Inversely, if the only visible effect of a spell is to summon, the spell MUST display “No Target Available” if there’s no empty slot to summon into – e.g: Daemonomicon, Essencia (especially Essencia, whose spell does explicitly nothing without a Dragon Spirit alongside it).
  • If the summon triggers at random, the spell MUST display “No Target Available” if the summon is attempted without an empty slot (e.g. Lyriath will display this message already, but Copycat does not)

Alternatively, you could create a different graphic (“Unable to Summon” or whatever) to avoid confusion with other effects that fail to trigger (like failing to deal Charm damage due to enemy team formation).

4 Likes
6

I’d prefer a distinct message such as “team is full” or “no open slots”.

I like the idea of hiding the message when the spell has other effects in addition to summoning.

1 Like