Mage Summons (Again)

Thinking about it…I think it is a difference if you are using a brown spider or a red spider...so why don’t we “simply” add lvls to the summoned elementals and I do not mean lvl 1 to 100 for the elemental.
The lvl/type of elemental you are summoning is based on your skill. E.g.:

“weak” basic fire elemental summoned on skill 1 – 29
Has X life points, is doing Y damage and is using Z spells.

“average” fire elemental summoned on skill 30 – 59
Has X + 25% life points, is doing Y + 10% damage and is using Z + 1 spells.

“high” fire elemental summoned on skill 60 – 89
Has X + 66 % life points, is doing Y + 25% damage and is using Z + 2 spells.

“outstanding” fire elemental summoned on skill 90 or above
Has X + 100 % life points, is doing Y + 50% damage and is using Z + 3 spells.

These 4 fire elemental lvls in my example could also have some visible differences. (e.g. different sizes or red tones)
Maybe the lvls could even vary depending on the magic school. E.g. Earth elementals could get each step way more life points as other elementals, fire elementals dot damage/time is raising above average, the number of summoned skeletons is raising for death magic,…

 

I liek the idea of visual differences, but i think they want to stay away from making them deal enough damage to make a big difference. They want the damage from them to be insignificant enough that you dont feel like you need to have it out

 

Not a bad idea regarding the level range and the increases that accompany them. I also would like that coupled with the visual differences. Also, with them not wanting the damage to be significant, I don't actually think it should be that way. What would be the point of working on improving the summon, or getting it at all, if it was significant enough you wouldn't need it out? That's the entire point of getting the summon; to use it. For those of us that want to go pure mage (no plate/leather/sword n shield/etc.), we need something to help us out/soak up dmg/whatever. Myself and others aren't asking for game breaking summons that end worlds, we just want a summon that can at least be tied with taming (as we level it up of course) so that it's not pointless. Trust me, as summons are, they currently are insignificant.

 

Doesnt have to deal damage to be significant. the water elemental heals you periodically and folks are claiming its the most useful one because of it. And the wisp doesnt do ANY damage and i feel liek its best best combat pet out there right now

 

Alright, well the water healing is nice. But again, if you're going pure mage, I'm pretty sure you want something that can either help you down the mobs, or tank/taunt them (earth/ice ele) off of you. Can't say anything about the wisp, as I haven't used that one yet.

 

Not to derail the topic...I'm really just trying to catch up. I was away for a few months and when I came back it was near impossible for me to get the phoenix skill. Are all elementals dependent on boss quests now? I'll try for the water/ice elementals but I just put so much into my sun tree.
maybe I'm missing something simple...come on coffee
:::staring into the abyss of daunting new tactics and play style:::

 

As far as I know for R30, you need to do quests for Phoenix and Fire Elemental. At least earth, air, water elementals don't require to do any quests. Just need to talk to the master trainers.

 

ok, water it is then. I sure do hope they implement some type of elemental leveling system. It seems to me that a magical creature should reflect the abilities of the caster. A high level caster should be capable of summoning a formidable elemental, definitely so if the summoned creatures are the top of the skill tree.

 

There might not be any further work on the summons until post-wipe. However, I do see that there might be some adjustment after the all the skill trees have been revised where a player won't just get all skills on the tree by upping up to 10 points. I remember the devs said in one of post mortem that the minimum skill requirements will be changed.

For now, just tests all these skills and report if they don't work as expected, I guess.

 

having most of the scaling based on attunement might help. The most powerful pets will be the dedicated mages.

 

Yea, currently Fire/Phoenix/Lich require quest completion in order to be able to purchase/use the skill. The rest of the pets just require training to get to them. And I agree that a player that has dedicated all of their time and training into magery should have better/good pets.

I think that would be good as well. Though, if they are going to leave the "effectiveness" on the pets, make it a cross between attunement and effectiveness. Honestly though, at this point, I would be happy to have any change (for the better of course) regarding the magery summons...... (@Devs).

 

I think most would agree with @Chris here "I know people want pets to be way more powerful and scale up in power or to have multiple pets. The reality is though that making something super powerful just makes it so everyone has to use that unbalanced element to stay competitive."

However, I think the issue is that a tamed spider's damage is much higher than a fire elemental used by a highly attuned fire mage. Raising the summons damage to be comparable to tamed pets or ideally scaling their damage off the investment in the magic tree would be a nice fix and offer the player something more impactful to look forward to if they level the summon and the magic tree.

*edited for clarity

 

@Chris

ARE YOU KIDDING ME !!!!!!!
Is this a rotten Joke?????

YES I do want my pet to level up in skill as I dedicate my time and effort and hard work to it.

And YES this does make you have to Level up your Pet/ Summon to = mine to be competitive, if you don't then YES my pet / Summon will be better then yours.

This reply is down right WRONG on so many levels.

Why have a leveling system at all, for anything, if were afraid that it will force others to have to level up also to be competitive.

Its like saying that if I level up my Avatar then that will force you to have to level up yours to be competitive, and this isn't fair, so were all the same power from day 1.

I do not see the difference between leveling up my Avatar skills or My pets / summons skills, as far as game balance is concerned. this should not matter, and here we are using it at Gospel.

 

I think Chris is pointing out they don't want to force people to run pets to have the highest dps output, but unfortunately no matter how you slice it that is already an issue with taming. A guy with a red spider is always going to do more damage than a similar build without, if they are the same level. So as long as they have tamed pets, just make a leveled summon do comparable damage to the top tamed pet. Sota can't balance this around classes like many mmos because any avatar can have unlimited skills, but making summons hit for 10 damage at lvl 80 feels underwhelming. If they don't want to cap skill points, which imho is the best answer to a lot of issues with this games skill system, maybe have the pets/summon inflict a legitimate negative effect to the caster like 20% drop in hp or defensive values, etc. That's how you would balance a pet class normally. Then you can have the pets damage scale allowing it to be impactful and fun while not forcing everyone to run pets in pvp/pve because it's purely the optimal choice. It's already how they balance overpowered skills like chaotic feedback and I think it's what they tried to do originally with focus drain, but it wasn't very fun to rapidly lose your ability to use skills. So make it a negative effect that plays well, but offers an interesting choice because although powerful, it has a real negative cost. From a design stand point you allow the player to truly feel the impact of a summon while offering them a new meaningful choice instead of just an optimal one.

 

Are you trying to consider that a Avatar with a Tamed Pet combined Dps, Vs a Avatar with a Summons combined Dps Vs a Avatar only Dps should all be the same?
Hell No!!!! theirs absolutely no way I would ever think that any of them should be the same. If that's the case you mind as well drop taming and summons right out of the game,

Avatar with Tamed pet should be the highest Dps in the game, do to the extremely high cost and the amount of Xp and time you have to devote to taming. Hands down this should be the top

Avatar with a Summons should be second on the list just because they have less skills to train up as far as just 1 skill where compared to a tamer who has is 5-6

And final the solo Avatar should be there 3rd on the list, nothing against this build, but its faster, cheaper, and a lot simpler to build then the others.

This is what I'm trying to say

If I had to spend 1,000,000 Xp and I dumped it into 1 Avatar Vs
Spending 1,000,000 Xp split between a Avatar and a pet (500,000 Xp each)

The single avatar would be a better choice and do more DPS.

But
If I had 1,000,000 Xp in a single Avatar Vs
1,000,000 Xp in a Avatar and 1,000,000 xp into my a Pet (total 2,000,000 Xp)

Then the Avatar Pet combo gets the win Hands down, It takes twice as long, cost twice as much, does 2x the Dps

And that's how the game is right now, you got to spend more XP in training the pets or the summons so why shouldn't they do more damage.
Rigging the game mechanics so there equal is a stab in the back to all the tamers and Summoners out there.

 

I can see this point, but elementals are the top tier spells. They are the best thing in every tree, for all of them you need to seek specialized trainer and for many of them (hopefully all in the future) you have to follow a special quest.
They are supposed to be useful! They are supposed to be used. And they should get better as you level them higher. Preferably comparable with tamed pets at the same level. The focus drain is something that limits their usefulness already. In any case such high level, high cost spell should be damn well worth it. And levelling it should be rewarded. Low level summons should not be that useful, but I would not mind GMed Fire Elemental to be as good as Xavara.

 

I completely agree with everything you've said, my main concerns are magic users summons being less powerful than pets when maxed and heavily attuned in a school. Since I believe that would tunnel everyone into tamed pets and cause magic users to ignore their highest tier spell which seems completely backwards. I only offer the heavier debuff idea as a replacement to not scaling damage because devs are afraid they'll force everyone to run pets/summons. I rather have a summon that hits for over 100+ damage and a debuff than their current manifestation were they hit for 10 damage at level 80. I think many people like Nolove, might be unaware just how little damage summons currently do. His straw man example of xp investment shows this, since it's actually the opposite, currently I can invest points in only 2 taming tree skills (Tame Creature > Summoning) and have a red spider that does well over 10 times the damage of a magic summon that is the highest tier spell of the tree and required twice the amount of xp to unlock (Fire Fist > Fire Arrow > Fireball > Ignite Weapon > Immolation > Ring of Fire > Summon Fire Elemental). Plus, lets consider that devs don't plan on keeping the current system of 10 points to unlock the next skill, but rather a total tree investment number of x before unlocking the next tier, which will require people to be even more xp invested in a magic tree to get to the summons.

 

And I agree with your agreeing. @Chris @Berek @Devs Can we get some more clarification on this? We've heard that the higher summons get, the cheaper they get, etc. But, as so many have spoken up about, what does that do for us? It does not, at all, increase their actual effectiveness/dmg/usability. Look at the post above me, the one I quoted: Many skills/points to get a summon that doesn't do anything useful vs. 2 skills/points to get the best creature. Seems a little messed up to me.

 

Let's face it - in the end the only thing that matters is the time invested.

More time invested should return an increase on what you are trying to pursue. We are either trying to pursue more defense or more damage per second (DPS).

As we improve a skill it should provide us with one of these two major items as a result.

Summons
As an example a fire elemental should be improved DPS while a water elemental should be improved defense. Moreover the water elemental should be a tank while the fire elemental should need us to tank for it. Variances should exist between the summoned creatures and we should be able to find the one that matches our desired play-style. They should not be used or viewed as a DOT or HOT. I believe that is all they really are at the moment. Needless to say when I first acquired a phoenix several releases ago I was instantly disenfranchised with how quickly elves killed it and and then slaughtered me compared to someone with death+heal magic. I thought for sure a bird of fire would be a great asset in battle.
Advantages should be:

1. Fights to the death
2. Can be replace summoned in the heat of battle after a moderate cooldown.

Cons should be:

1. Larger focus drain than pets. This isn't your buddy you are willing it from another plain and forcing it to do what you want magically.
2. Consumes reagents
3. Could turn on you after the fight is finished.

Pets
A pet should be sweet, but it shouldn't be 20 times better than the person that controls it. There should be limits to what kind of creature we can control at least based on our taming skills. As it stands right now a player on day one can have a red spider with minimal investment in taming. That makes no sense. Pets should be good at defense or dps as well, but again not incredible at both.
Advantages should be:

1. Less focus consumed
2. Persistence
3. Intelligence to run away and not be killed unless trapped

Cons should be:

1. Runs away to rest up
2. Resting time is high so there is a long cool down
3. Cannot be summoned during battle (don't agree with this one)
4. "Perma Death" (honestly still don't agree with this one, either) I have access to magic and should be able to carry my dead pet to someone that can magically fix it. Let GM tamers create rez kits for sale.

Avatars
If an avatar focuses on a high DPS skill they should be able to hit a point where their DPS is nearly as good as a Tamer with a DPS pet or a Mage with a DPS Summons.
If an avatar focuses on a high defense skill they should be able to hit a point where their defenses are as good a s a Tamer with a defense pet or a mage with a defense summons.

There is nothing prohibiting an avatar from picking up either a summons or a pet so technically this is already achievable. Of course, nothing beats a gank-squad so that will typically be the answer for those not playing solo.


As it currently stands time is disregarded in pet ownership. Anyone can own and use a pet. Sure a tamer had to spend time, but the owner did very little especially if they are just a new player who is friends with a tamer.

The mage who invested time and likely completed a quest got a simple attack or HOT. (heal over time)

The player who level up to GM in many skills still cannot out-damage the player with a red spider. Sure they can kill the other player in a duel without an issue but I'm considering PVE and afk grinding as the bigger issue here.

I've seen this same broken solution in SWG-NGE when they finally brought back pets and it was hilarious when my crafter went out with his level 90 Kimogila Dragon and owned nightsisters for hours on end. The crafter couldn't even heal himself but he did great.

 

There should definitely be some benefit for level your elemental. If my level 50 elemental can't mop the floor with your level 1 elemental something is wrong with the system.

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