Mage Summons (Again)

Okay, like UO style, just with more points. That's not a bad idea honestly. I mean, really I'm game for whatever works, I'm just currently focused on how summoning will work. But now I see your point though.

 

I removed some posts that were wayyyy off topic.

 

Wait what? Pku got moderated for suggesting hardcaps to fix this. I liked that suggestion.

Im not sure I like this new direction of the fourms very much.

 

My question would be, will elemental summons be balanced with tamed creatures? The summons seem very weak relative to tamed creatures. I understand balancing to avoid summons and tamed becoming necessary, but it seems that summons should be potentially as powerful as tamed creatures? If summons are just far weaker creatures than tamed, why use them?

My suggestion would be for summons to become stronger with skill and/or level, to the point that at Grandmaster they eventually become as powerful as the stronger tamed pets, for balance purposes. If necessary, summons could be made to entail greater material cost (more components, or even silver and such rather than only reagents) to match the cost of tamed creatures, so that all varieties will be attractive at the high level of the game (elementals, tamed animals, hired NPC's if we add those, whatever kind of sidekick creature you can have should be able to reach similar power levels eventually).

 

Exactly my point. The best example I can think of regarding this was in Greymark (??) Forest. I walked in to do a little farming of some pointy eared people. I looked and saw a guy just standing around while his ferocious spider was on murder everything mode. He just sat there, waited for his pet to kill literally everything around him, and then he looted. So, I then proceeded to get my Ice Elemental up to 100%+ effectiveness. Three elves thawed him out in literally less than 20 seconds. This is the type of fix I am talking about, and that others have mentioned. It took me a while to sit around and summon an elemental (not to mention the reagents) to get him to skill level 30+ to reach that effective level, to actually be just as strong as he was when I first pulled him out of the freezer. I know it was mentioned before that they/yall (devs) don't want to make it the go-to/must have for any build, but as it stands, isn't that what taming is right now, or just getting someone to tame a ferocious and you use it? You don't even need taming to use it, since every starter set of skills starts with a 1 in taming, anyone can use any pet if they just buy it. @Chris @Berek can we get any enlightenment on this type of fix possibly in the future...and by future I mean for final wipe?

 

This is the only way to do it right! Pku's assesment is a solid one how can you ballance this with the current system, chris did have a suggestion that might be a back up he suggested some insane number to reach the top skills sort of a hardcap system. Though it does not address the fact you can trade a low tamable to who ever, there should be a controll skill that level in the taming tree that has constnat checks to see if you can maintain the pets controll. That way the mage summons can be a true battle pet.

 

Once again, like the UO system. I think that if people want to be able to buy and use a ferocious spider, or any pet for that matter, they need to have the appropriate taming skill. In other words, if you can't tame it yourself, then you don't have a chance of using it. And honestly, I'd be completely fine without hardcaps as long as the skills/spells/SUMMONS get worked on and fixed to match their effectiveness. 100% effectiveness should not be the exact same as 1% effectiveness (not just summons, any spell).

 

Can you please one-line the question? And is this a direct point of feedback for R30, or better suited to another section of the forums?

 

Maybe start working on the things that matter, before problems are created that are PERSISTENT?

Most of that stuff has been discussed here already plenty of times and even was in questions on hangouts etc but was never brought up.

 

@Berek Are we going to see mage summons fixed to where we can work them up to be better, at least to the point of being on par with tames of the same taming level. Example, a level 30 mage summon is as good as something tamed at taming level 30. As it is now, a brand new adventurer with a friend with a lot of gold can purchase a ferocious spider and power level him/herself by just letting it run wild in higher skull areas than they should be in. And I posted it in the R30 feedback as it hasn't changed since I posted this question (and was told this will be looked into) from previous releases. On that note, sorry if I posted this in the wrong forum.

 

I think the summoned could have stats that scaled from the summoners str/dex/int/health/focus stats
but with bit different propotions depending on what you summons
a Tank type pet should have higher multiple for health for example.

 

Let me see if I can word this from a different perspective.

Top level mage spell results should never improve. Only what is required to create them is reduced. With that in mind what is the incentive to invest in the skill beyond level 30?

Alternatively what if I put it this way? Incredibly powerful magic creatures should not hold a candle to an obsidian bear or a couple elves.

Does that make a bit more sense? Doesn't it sound more ridiculous now? Of course the spell benefits should improve. Light should last longer and be brighter. Your ability to summon should improve greatly resulting in more powerful creatures and the possibility of pulling more than one through the ether. It is very sad, in my opinion, that an elemental is so pitifully under-powered to begin with. Sure a summoned skeleton is weak, but a fire elemental or Phoenix? Seriously?

 

Just to kind of caveat off of this....I also think (I know it won't happen, but a boy can dream right!!), that maybe....every 50% effectiveness, it should change appearance and look a lil more badass or something =D

 

There is a difference between making something relevant and useful vs completely useless and irrelevant. I know the dev team currently appears to not care about any build that isn't the melee/mage hybrid (as that's the only build getting any love or balance), but it would be nice to be effective as a non-melee mage based caster/summoner. Currently, it is not viable to use the summons past 2-3 skull zones (they pop way too quickly). Pets have something that actually improves them as time goes on and some of the pets are able to be used against any level of creature (higher end pets). It would be nice for those that invest a VERY large amount of XP and have specific difficult quests to acquire high end summons to have them actually be useful.

Don't give us super powerful summons that imbalance the game. Just make them useful for those who actually use them as part of their build.

 

I'll word it a 3rd way. If you want to be effective with a "pet" abandon high level mage skills and go buy a high level pet.

 

Follows the current philosophy of time invested doesn't matter at all and it is all about the gold.

 

And that is exactly why I started this thread: Summons don't work as they should and everyone should just buy the best pet (Ferocious anything) and proceed to beast through zones. It shouldn't work like this.

 

So....I worded it in a one-line question....

 

@Berek

Adding utility to pets might be a good way to go. Seeing as the water elemental heals folks, wisp confuses and mesmerizes folks (and can hutn down resources):

Phoenix: Cast Enlightenment on allies periodically(Like a +3) and/or have a "Patrol" mode that detects nearby stealth players.

Fire Elemental: Cast a fire attunment buff on allies periodically, and/or have a "patrol" mode that leaves small rings of fire in its wake while it wanders until it engages

Air Elemental: periodically cast Air's Embrace on nearby allies(a +3 version or weaker) and/or have it cast Discahrge if approached while in Patrol mode.

Earth Elemental: periodically give a small damage avoidance or resistance buff to friendlies and/or have it cast root on a target and stun itself for the duration of the root while being approached in Patrol mode.

Ice Elemental: cast a weak version of Shield of Ice minus the attunment on allies periodically, and/or cast ice field in patrol mode

The undead summons maybe could do a little bit of what their NPC counterparts do. Footman does shield bash or rend now and then, Skeletal mage summon maybe could periodically ressurect dead allies when set to patrol mode, Lich could perform its life drain attack minus the stun.

What yall think? Soemthing along these lines where they dont directly fight stuff good but give you and y7our party utility based on yoru tree specialization

 

I actually don't mind any of what you just said. Although, I would still like them to be able to live, on top of abilities. Taming (certain animals of course) get abilities, such as poison for example. Anyways, I would say really, for ice, instead of the secondary ability you mentioned, just increase it's HP/Armor to make it more tanky, along with Earth Elemental. It just makes more sense for those 2 types. The rest are pretty on point. And maybe not cast a buff, more like give it an aura that gives you + party members a buff until the summon goes away or gets out of range.