Summons

Logwad · Post by **Logwad** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 12:57 pm

If you look in the new skill system features forum, you can see previous posts on summons.

Some things I have noticed or think is a good idea are:

1. If you try to summon something and 'something is in the way", you still have the time delay, if i was not my medium lvl of 44 I would have most certainly died because of this.

2. At one point I was summoning stalkers, then I lvled and "upgraded" to demons, which were for a while weaker it seems. We should, like create food, be able to "invoke summon pet monster <availible-monster-for-your-lvl>".

3. we should have a wider variety of things we can summon. It seems the most powerful thing we can summon is angels. At higher lvls we should be able to summon multiple tile monsters if we specify them. The default summon would be your "newest" monster for your lvl. (rods, for the sake of balance, would not be able to summon anything other than the monster for its lvl.

4. A command like check-summon that would print out what summons are out and what there hp/maxhp is. Another command that goes with point 3 is a what-summon command that show what monsters you can summon.

5. The summon elemental/golum spell should be the powerhouse of your summons. As of now its is only a slightly stronger, yet so much more stupid summon.

I seriously doubt (but hope) that a few of these will be implimented. This is not a post i mean to complain it, but one which I hope will improve the game.

Zortan · Post by **Zortan** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 3:06 pm

You read my mind.. Last night I stopped playing my role as a summoner when I found out that whether I'm level 20 or 200 I'm always going to summon those darn angels.. They were fine early on (actually, my level 16 or 18 comet would not kill them if I cast on them by accident) but now at level 20 pyromania and 18 summoning, my comet kills them in about 10 seconds.. Plus they don't stand against any type of creatures..

If I can kill a dragon at my current level, I would think that having 4 or 5 pets do the work for me would be realistic, but nope.. Fire dragon agains fire elemental - fire elemental lasts about 15 seconds.. The other elementals don't fair much better against any other type of a dragon.. My summon pets - pets last even less..

My favorite idea that you mentioned (and read my mind) is to have a parameter to summon pet monster (or maybe a totally separate summon spell for higher level players?)

I would love to be able to summon multi-tile monsters, or at least something a bit better than those angels..

Zortan casts "summon pet monsters".
Balrog appears next to Zortan.

..also, I agree about the delay when you cast on a busy tile.. If you didn't summon anything, you shouldn't get delayed.. That HAD killled me when I was lower level.. Now I don't bother with summons any way, so it's all good (or bad depending how you look at it)..

If you cannot have a parameter to summon (I don't see why not since we do have parameters on marking runes) then maybe change summon pet monster to summon something equivalent to your level (at random even, so as to not make it too easy to abuse for money or spellbooks, or rings)..

What drives people to keep playing a game:
1) Seeing what new equipment they can find to make them selves more powerful and having fun using said equipment
2) Seeing them selves level so they can cast more powerful spells or new spells..
3) Everything else (quests, community, etc, etc)

I for one started with MUDS.. Some spells didn't happen till later on.. I played till I got all the spells, then I played till I got the best equipment in the game, then I played to party with people and take on things I couldn't take out by my self..

Since I never played a summoner before, I never really whined about it, but I cannot role play something that has no future, so I am whining.. I'm tired of letting my angels kill giants for mesely experience points, when I can get 10x that in half the time killing dragons or demon lords with other spells (non-summoner).. It's a total turn off to the game to sit there for hours earning 1 level and not having anything new to look forward to.

Avion · Post by **Avion** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 6:05 pm

With the new spell code it is pretty simple to add and modify spells - many times no coding required, just a new arch. This is fairly new and untested for game balance and everyone admits it is not release reasy (this is one reason why the server is not packaged as 1.6 as yet.) If you are playtesting Summoner (or any class) and have issues/suggestions please mail the developer list or log a enhancement on the sourceforge site as things on this forum are not 'officially' looked at. It would help if there is something mentioned here if it were to stay in one thread so that it is easier to follow too.

I see no reason why new summoner spells would not be created or new monsters added to the available summonable monster lists except for the time it takes to do this, come up with suggestions and an awareness of the problem.

Zortan · Post by **Zortan** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 5:42 pm

So is this topic dead or is someone doing something? It would be nice to get some input to see if there is any resolution being implemented..

hoxu · Post by **hoxu** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:11 pm

It's dead after five days of inactivity?

Avion · Post by **Avion** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:40 am

It takes me five days just to change my mind...

Logwad · Post by **Logwad** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 12:55 pm

"Avion Posted: It takes me five days just to change my mind..."

what is that supposed to mean?

that its not as easy as you though? that you'd like to nerf summoners more? that aliens really are invading earth?

Ryo · Post by **Ryo** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 6:49 pm

Dragonbreath & identify, and some others had their duration reduced, already.

Other spells not yet, i'm afraid.

Zortan · Post by **Zortan** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 7:40 pm

The duration delay was ridiculous to begin with.. 30 seconds on identify was an overkill... Glad you guys corrected that..

..but.. that improves existing classes, but it still doesn't address the unplayability of the summoner class... Can they have a randomly summoned pet (even if it's non-friendly (meaning attack the caster) based on the casters summon level (or overall level)??

I thought you said this is easy to implement!

Website · Post by **Leaf** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 9:15 pm

Avion wrote: With the new spell code it is pretty simple to add and modify spells - many times no coding required, just a new arch. This is fairly new and untested for game balance and everyone admits it is not release reasy (this is one reason why the server is not packaged as 1.6 as yet.)

Zortan wrote: I thought you said this is easy to implement!

Sure, it appears that the spells can be modified or new ones added with relative ease.

Avion wrote:I see no reason why new summoner spells would not be created or new monsters added to the available summonable monster lists except for the time it takes to do this, come up with suggestions and an awareness of the problem.

However, modifying the spells in such a way that is useful, effective and not out of balance takes time _and_testing. Most often, more then five days.

I refer back to when priest/clerics could summon avatars that were 2x2 or larger. People wanted it, it seemed like a great idea. But guess what happened when a 2x2 or larger avatar was summoned in a hallway that was only half that width or height? Server crash. So, the avatars were set back to being 1x1.

Zortan wrote: Can they have a randomly summoned pet (even if it's non-friendly (meaning attack the caster) based on the casters summon level (or overall level)??

As for the summon pet feature, what is the suggested progression of summoned pets?

As an example:

Level 1 = kobold
Level 2 = goblin
Level 3 = bats
Level 4 = gnolls
And so on..

Keep in mind, summoned pets do not cast spells. So, is a skull without spell casting stronger or more effective then a dark angel? Dunno, hence the testing.

Overall..

You offer good ideas, somewhat easy to implement - but how and in what fashion?