A fair evaluation of the summons changes?

Brennan068 · Post by **Brennan068** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:36 am

Hi folks,

IMO the changes to the summons cannot be fairly evaluated by lvl 18+ characters. We've become used to what our old summons could do for us. So, in the spirit of the beta test, I would like to suggest that we get a team of people to retest the summons and fairly evaluate them. This would idealy be made of people who have experience with the old summons so they have a fair baseline to compare.

What we would need would be a summoner of each allowable alignment / class from each of the factions to sign up and agree to create a new character to run that character at least up to summon 9 and provide fair and constructive feedback of their experiences.

Comments?

LadyCheron · Post by **LadyCheron** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:13 pm

Thats the kind of thing we need to have tested.

ATI · Post by **ATI** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 8:06 pm

Even with the new summons, clerics are still pretty rock on classes....by the way, hate to break it to y'all but the Cleric is best used with trickery and travel, way more useful than summons.

First of all, the summons attack coding was broken BEFORE the summon change, making them less useful after the change is liking changing a lightbulb in a burning house.

Still the main complaint I am reading is that its now harder for low lvl Drudis/clerics/whatever to lvl because their summons stink now. Well....I think that the devs should have instead made it easier for the non-caster classes to lvl up like summoner classes did, BEFORE the summon change.

My suggestion would be to have the summons have a more fast attack approach. Dramatically reduced availability times, 3 minutes game time maybe, and have their attack code to make them like an onslaught. For example....like in FFVII you summon a creature to BEAT THE LIVING HELL out of an opponent, but then the summon is gone, and your left with substantially less MP to cast other spells and more summons (until way late in the game)....so why not make the summons be Heavy offense with all their wimpy spells taken out of their attack options, and have them last for limited times. Thus, the summon can't constantly wail on opponents, yet they still are functional.

The way summons are now, they don't last long enough, and their attack coding blows....who wants a dragon that wastes all its time casting magic missle? NO ONE

My point? Make our summons sheer offense but last for a limited time. That limit in their time should be a good check to summon abuse....

Now if we could just make non-casters level up as fast as druids and clerics

HealingBreeze · Post by **HealingBreeze** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 8:27 pm

Ah FFVII...Good ol' Knights of the Round...anyway, that would be an interesting approach, one that I must say I would support.

Still, perhaps it could be an option that you can choose, say by talking to someone in a magic shop? Set the summon attack style there, then your summons either go all out frenzy for say ~20 seconds (to include time to travel to the target) or they exist for the usual duration at the current levels?

However, I do believe that they should start stronger than they are, then scale through the levels to a more supportive role. Honestly, what could happen? People powerlevel to 6?

Well, that's my suggestion - flame away.

WillPower · Post by **WillPower** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:06 pm

My Idea was honestly the opposite in certain aspects...

Reduce the attack of the summons so they cant kill off everything...
But increase their HP and AC so that they stand a chance of surviving a few hits. The idea of summons are to allow casters to cast... thats why fighters and barbarians dont have summons - they dont need time to cast so they dont need protection while they do. If that makes sense.

I was thinking summons could be more defense - like they are supposed to be...

But either way as of now the summons cant handle fighting anything or defending the caster at all. A couple of smacks by anything and they are gone. A level 4 summon should be able to kill a goblin... not be killed by one... (A problem I had till i leveled some more)

ATI · Post by **ATI** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:51 am

Im not even sure its possible to call "powerlvling" to lvl 6 an actual powerlevel. But I like that, give the people a choice, have the summons be an all around support role, or have them be dramatically small summon duration for all out assault type summons. That would be AWESOME!!!

This has to be the middle ground everyone can enjoy

And still, lvl 4 summons should be able to slaughter goblins in ANY game, even NO magic servers

AlienOverlord · Post by **AlienOverlord** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:44 am

How about making the summons all out attackers and familiars be meat walls? Clerics don't need meat walls like wiz do and familars last all day anyway. But I would hate a summon that lasts a minute...give it decent hp but a low ac (for that level) for a high bab (for that level) and good damage. Give the familiars damage reduction equal to what players have at the same level (so familiars get a boost at player levels 5,9,13...). That way wiz have a familiar that can take a beating but can only cast once per day and summons that can give a beating but are easy to hit. Of course there are many choices of familiar and how to keep them different yet all meat shields...maybe some make better meat shields but do nearly no damage.

Lukterran · Post by **Lukterran** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:22 am

I have BRAINSTORM for summons and all the like companions. GO back to the base NWN rules for the creatures/spells!! That was pretty well balanced and they weren't to powerful. They were about just about right for each level. Not underpowered for there classes and not over powered.

It was the addition of the new summon creatures like the lvl 4 constructes(Xorn) or lvl 8 Celestial Warriors that through the summons out of balance. Change it back and start with the old summons as your base for determining creature power level if you want to change the creature type for summons.

Oh and get rid of the retarded stuff like Chickens, Pengiuns, Cows, and what ever other stupid animal. (What is hamster or rabbit next?) lol

Kelli · Post by **Kelli** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:23 am

Go for the eyes Boo!!!

Quiett · Post by **Quiett** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:14 am

Ahh, the minature Space Hamster. good memories

TastyTreat · Post by **TastyTreat** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:40 pm

My suggestion for summons is to simply have the summons perform their intended function for each class. For example... classes whose summons serve as meat shields, wizards and sorcs, should get summons that have crappy attacks + higher hp + ac and possibly some defensive abilites at higher levels (such as buffs). The other classes that can use summons but don't need the meat shields could have more offensive summons, clerics and rangers being two examples. The more offensive summons can also have attack oriented abilites such as spellcasting and ranged attacks at higher levels. The offensive summons would also be significantly weaker physically and should die quickly in a toe to toe fight.