Summon Adjustments

[Curve]

This is what being out of touch looks like.

This is what being rude looks like.

If you don’t want to be considerate of other people feelings because that is the right thing to do then do so because communicating like an angry child does not get you what you want. It is ineffective.

[Biolab00]

Once before...i've forecast that any nerf to summons...even a slight nerf....well any sort of nerf at all, will result in an outrage.
Here we are...
So...it's not really about what is being nerfed.
It's only about it is being -nerfed-

[Kythana]

This is what being out of touch looks like.

This is what being rude looks like.

If you don’t want to be considerate of other people feelings because that is the right thing to do then do so because communicating like an angry child does not get you what you want. It is ineffective.

It isn't rude at all, there's no insult there.

This entire thread has been filled with nothing but negative feedback. So far this change has not been received remotely positively by the community at all. Even for those who think that summons were too OP, and needed a nerf, they can all still agree that without a significant change in the tools those casters have, this ultimately amounts to little more than gimping a class' ability to do content.

I would say that making a change that a majority of your playerbase disagree with, and then refusing to engage with said playerbase for 2 months is extremely out of touch.

[For My Next Trick]

Once before...i've forecast that any nerf to summons...even a slight nerf....well any sort of nerf at all, will result in an outrage.
Here we are...
So...it's not really about what is being nerfed.
It's only about it is being -nerfed-

Again. The problem isnt that its a change or even a nerf. These things can be done properly. Its the fact the change happened without any other things to offset for the people who had to rely on these things, most of whom already weren't in a great spot.

[Mamma ama Warlock]

Once before...i've forecast that any nerf to summons...even a slight nerf....well any sort of nerf at all, will result in an outrage.
Here we are...
So...it's not really about what is being nerfed.
It's only about it is being -nerfed-

Then you have read everything here with a (un)healthy dose of prejudice and relish in the feeling of "I told you so!" a bit too much. A lot of people who left a comment here disagree with the way it was handled, not that is was. Please, stop poking people where it hurts. That's just not nice.

[Biolab00]

As much as i want to agree but i just cannot do so.
When spell sequencer was first introduced...if anyone remember that thread post? It's as bad as this.
But it's actually pretty good, the way i see it. It's really not anything major.

As for the current 'nerf'
The only nerf that you are getting is, you do not get mass haste anymore on your summon together with concealment.
That's all. What you are missing on animal buff can be replaced with druidic sequencer.
You just don't get to use quasi druidic sequencer together with arcane sequencer and throw a mass haste on top of it.

None of the summon stats are touched at all.
They're still the same BS.

Undead summon? Negative flood will raise their AB.
Squashy? You can summon them so much times....

Planar Conduit...?
Slap a druidic sequencer and it's the same, just without that haste and concealment.
If i recall...conjuration spec has Planar conduit hasted, if that is so, there is some REAL merits to getting conjuration spec now.

Let's be realistic. There're plenty of build out there, with a fighter cleric or wizard AND a Conduit....
Also...Elementalist AND a Conduit....
Okay, Wizard gain the short end of the stick...but it's still the class that majority picks.
Why? Because they have so much feat perks that you can literally have epic spell focus on 5 schools if you forsake some epic spells.

Martial don't have it as good as people claim it to be.
This nerf isn't THAT bad as you guys claim it to be.

Losing that 1APR and 4AC is a bad deal but when you include just how OP the summon originally was?
...think again.

[Kythana]

It's a really cruel nerf for that only harms classes that already underperformed.

Go roll up a caster favored soul, caster shaman, or if you really want to suffer, caster druid. Soloing has become much more painful for those classes, so- What can you do instead? You group.

...And do what exactly? They can cast mostly the same buffs that are given in the form of consumables(at low level) and their damage/dc spells do effectively nothing. The HP bloat, save inflation, and overall mob density means that you need something that is reliable for an entire dungeon, which is either a... summon. Or infinite casting.

So at some point you just become a cantrip caster and it's a wonder what you contribute at all. And it's certainly not fun for those players either, who often would like to not use summons, but the alternative option is so laughable weak that you may as well be doing nothing at all.

[Naghast]

As much as i want to agree but i just cannot do so.
When spell sequencer was first introduced...if anyone remember that thread post? It's as bad as this.
But it's actually pretty good, the way i see it. It's really not anything major.

As for the current 'nerf'
The only nerf that you are getting is, you do not get mass haste anymore on your summon together with concealment.
That's all. What you are missing on animal buff can be replaced with druidic sequencer.
You just don't get to use quasi druidic sequencer together with arcane sequencer and throw a mass haste on top of it.

None of the summon stats are touched at all.
They're still the same BS.

Undead summon? Negative flood will raise their AB.
Squashy? You can summon them so much times....

Planar Conduit...?
Slap a druidic sequencer and it's the same, just without that haste and concealment.
If i recall...conjuration spec has Planar conduit hasted, if that is so, there is some REAL merits to getting conjuration spec now.

Let's be realistic. There're plenty of build out there, with a fighter cleric or wizard AND a Conduit....
Also...Elementalist AND a Conduit....
Okay, Wizard gain the short end of the stick...but it's still the class that majority picks.
Why? Because they have so much feat perks that you can literally have epic spell focus on 5 schools if you forsake some epic spells.

Martial don't have it as good as people claim it to be.
This nerf isn't THAT bad as you guys claim it to be.

Losing that 1APR and 4AC is a bad deal but when you include just how OP the summon originally was?
...think again.

Summon base stats were affected, except for conduit and mummy dust.

Mono elemental and a lot other summons got a hefty stat decrease.

One person shared screens of their mono water going from 51 ac to 36 ac i think? Before buffs. If those were taken into account (and lack of them now) the gap would be bigger.

No offense but i think it's a bit more than 4 ac.

Further edit, just to address one more thing.

ignoring the incorrect statement about no other summons having their base stats touched,
reducing the entire thing to "the only nerf you are getting is you can't mass haste your summons anymore" as if all the other possible variables of how summons could be buffed or nerfed does not exist is just... incorrect.

Some classes could cast mass zoos. some could use staff seq of one mass zoo, some ppl invested into scrolls of mass zoos. those options are gone now. and that affects summon stats.

[bagindawud]

If we may suggest,, Perhaps buffing traditional casters (wiz, sorc sham cler fvs etc) or
adjusting (avoiding to say nerfs haha) inficasters (locks etc) and hybrid class (spellswords) would be a good complement to this summons adjustment?

Give some better infinite spells for the traditional casters for them to pve (infi fireball? Whit ray?)
Remove discipline, mords and tumble from SS and Warlock so they're forced to multiclass for That? Or reduce their spellcasting ability to only lv 6/7

I'm guessing maybe the admins want to encourage group play? like some other server that nerfed summons harshly.

[Kythana]

The old summon monster III, aka wolf in a bottle previously had 30 AC, 16 AB, and 2 APR baseline.

It now has 21 AC, 11 AB and 1 APR.

So this summon has lost 9 AC, 5 AB, and 1 APR.

That is extremely significant towards the overtuned low level content that will shred this 60 HP summon. Even with a sequencer, variance is so tilted against your favor in lower levels, and you really have nothing you can do about it.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

So, here's my understanding of the history-

Sequencers were added, customized buffs were removed.

Community outcry ensued.

Irongron said we need to buff base summons, Sorrow Kitten begrudgingly volunteered, and has admitted since they probably way over did it.

Mass animal spells were added to the server, allowing folks to skirt the inital nerf a good bit.

Summons have been broken against PVE for close to if not over a year.

What does the history tell us?

That it's impossible to call this a knee jerk reaction, it was in fact long overdue.

That if Summons need a little buff down the line, that will come. Thats more than likely what Irongron meant by letting things settle.

Irongron needs a publicist, because if he had told the story of the history and eased folks minds some by saying we will be reevaluating the balance of summons for a few weeks with this as our starting point the post would have likely been better received.

That's all I got.

[Kalthariam]

Oh yes.

The OP summon that for months has been completely hard removed by... Checks notes

A spell that no longer can be protected from in any way for a vast majority of classes, that is accessible through a mixture of Lore, UMD, or just being cast, and requires almost zero effort into acquiring.

Also WoF and Banishment are increasingly more common in PvE dungeons, which just outright remove these said "Over powered" conjurations.

Nothing that has an easily accessible hard counter is ever OP. Period.

It's a hard counter literally ANYONE can get, and through multiple different channels.

Even before the most recent nerf it took two actions to completely deleted the summons -if- someone happened to spell resistance / mantle the conjurations with a sequencer.

There are so many classes that are WAY. WAY more problematic in the idea of trivializing PvE content than Summoners were, but because Summoners have the ability to summon (Once per day for conduit, btw, one removal means the end of conduit for the entire fight) creatures to fight for them, suddenly there is a problem with trivializing PvE content.

All this does is make already weak classes weaker, and as other people have pointed out, does nothing to address the problem.

I will never understand people's vendetta against conjuration focused spell casters, we are not the spooky boogimen you make us out to be.

[Xerah]

Anyone entering this discussion with the idea that summons were not too strong is hard to take seriously. That said, the other outliers already do outshine the old summons, so starting the nerfing at summoners seems like a misstep.

If I could hazard a guess, there seems to be this feeling that at least those other strong classes are seen as "doing it themselves" (i.e. getting into melee) and there is some aversion to a character being able to put that power into melee by using another vessel (i.e. a summon) which makes it seems like they are gaming the system.

Someone watching from above will see that summoner guy stand back and not take damage (not really paying attention to summon maintenance) while the melee dude has to go in there and put himself at risk, getting dispelled, losing hp, etc. But I'd say that the summoner is at much more risk while doing this. Those of us who have played a lot of summoners know how to avoid/limit this risk but it's still there if stuff hits the fan.

[Gibbaddy]

Terrible implementation of the idea. Either stop the mass spells, OR revert the stats.

Both is overkill.

[Ruzuke]

I will also add it is funny that seeker cleric epic spells consists only of summons and they cannot cast summons.

Would you please remove this sneak attack non exist buddy.

Could you also make the shadow clone from epic illsion for seeker cleric be able to do damage.

From a bow seeker cleric.

[Edens_Fall]

I have to ask 'Why'?

The stated reason, that it makes PvE content too easy, doesn't really make sense - as many others have stated. Other classes have long been able to solo everything for years. Unless the devs make monsters that are literally unfair/impossible, this will always be the case. I'm in awe at the time people put in to squeeze every advantage out of every class, especially here on Arellith with all of the unique content made over the years. So a weaker class, both in the current state of Arelith as well as throughout most fictional representations, using a Summoned ally to do the same thing (solo content) should not be an issue. Especially since the Sequencer update already nerfed the Summons pretty badly.

If it's to try to make people group up (which is preferable, all things being equal), I again ask 'Why'? Not 'Why try to get people to group up?' but 'Why make summons weaker?' A Summon in a group is superfluous, and most of the time other than saving your group coin by replacing consumables with your spells, you're pretty superfluous, too. I've rarely been able to get one spell off in a group before my allies have decimated everything. So you're there mostly to buff, use healkits, occasionally haste... And hope you don't have to rest too often to renew those spells and annoy everyone by asking to do so.

If it's to keep people from leveling too quickly... then again, it won't work. It will just mean that the classes that do rely on Summons to survive just won't be played. The ones that can still sail through PvE enemies will, and level just as quickly as before. If it's to keep people from using low-level Scroll Summons on non-casters to do so... then I suggest that fixing that particular problem would be a better update than wrecking a swath of classes that rely on Summons.

If it's to keep people from farming gold/items/chests... again, the other classes can do that without Summons, so again you'll just see less of the classes that this update harms.

I've seen people say that a Summon should be a tool, not something to rely on, but I can't agree. Especially if you're trying to do anything alone. While partying with a group is the preferred way to do things, and is what Arelith was designed for, it just doesn't always happen. People playing in off times, in out-of-the-way areas, who won't/can't for RP reasons, people who just have an hour or so and want to dungeon delve, or any number of reasons that you may find you're adventuring alone. Doing so without a Summon for those classes that need them is either an exercise in extreme patience or quick trip to the fugue plane... and often both.

Honestly, this smacks of a solution in search of a problem, just as the Sequencer update was. Other classes do PvE better than any Summon reliant class does, even before Sequencers made it harder. Leveling too quickly has been a problem for years, but it has nothing to do with Summons, the same as farming for runes/gold/whatever. Unless the intent is to make people play these classes less, then I cannot understand it.

I'll end with this, as I think it's the most important point. I love the world of Arelith, exploring and finding new things, seeing what's been added when I thought I'd seen it all a loooong time ago.
BUT.
I don't play a 20+ year old game for ANY 'PvE' content. If I was looking for that, there's Balder's Gate 3. Or WH40K Rogue Trader. Or XCom with the Long War mod. Or Skyrim, Fallout, Far Cry, Mass Effect, Dragon Age... you get the point.

It's not what got me hooked on Arelith, and it is CERTAINLY not why I keep coming back after all these years.

Thank you for this. It is far better written and worded then I could ever manage. The dungeons were never what kept me on Arelith, though I do love them. Also enjoy your shout out to Rogue Trader, awesome game. But I digress.

To add my own thoughts, I would just like to ask a simple question. What is the vision you as the developer have for the classes? I get the feeling there is a goal for casters, or a role you forsee them playing that isn't mere buff bots or summoning machines. Perhaps if we knew that or what your vision is over all it might better help us understand how to get there.

[Luingar]

Let us cast spells on our summons and balance the summons around that. Maybe add a caster level penalty to spells cast on summons, so they're easier to dispel. There are already dungeons that have dispels all over them. This whole "sequencer" situation is really nonsensical to me.

[Kythana]

Let us cast spells on our summons and balance the summons around that. Maybe add a caster level penalty to spells cast on summons, so they're easier to dispel. There are already dungeons that have dispels all over them. This whole "sequencer" situation is really nonsensical to me.

Agreed. Classes should just work from the ground level, with the tools they are given. Having a bunch of external consumables being required(just to begin leveling) is absolutely wild.

Compare this to something like warlock, who just- Can cast forever and doesn't need anything to start this off. Now any modern vancian spellcaster needs to make sure they have sequencers for their summons, and a spellbound wand in order to actually have enough spells for a dungeon.

Extremely unintuitive for a newer player.

[Peacelily]

Please remember that bards max at T4 outsider/T6 summons. These are buffed by bardsong, sure, but very often, they still act as the main way Bards work.

Behold, the maxed out power of a level 30 bard.

[AstralUniverse]

where is the nature sequencer for bull's. also.. it doesnt look like there's bard song going on there? Is that +3 damage from bard song? Is the ab actually what it shows in the sheet, even with bard song and the gsf conjuration bonuses you get automatically on this spell?

[Peacelily]

That's with full Bardsong from a Song of the Heart bard, level 30 caster so full epic caster bonuses, etc, etc.

That is as good as a bard can now get for a summon.

[Draco]

To me, it's making more mechanical sense to build a Constitution-based or a Dexterity-based Wizard than one that's heavy into Intelligence. You guys really need to fix that, DC spells are a joke when everyone is walking around with saves in the mid to high 30s. I have no issue with you guys nerfing the summons, hell take it even further, but you NEED to give them something back. You're expecting common wizards and sorcerers to hold their own the same way one of these infinicasters can, yeah well they can't. Boost all DCs across the board or start nerfing the amount of saves people are able to put on their gear. You guys created this powercreep, more powerful weapons, more powerful classes, and plenty of ways to boost saves but the only way to boost DCs is from some serious sacrifices in the build. Also, players can deathward wand and clarity potion in one round leaving themselves immune to all mind and death effects, then they can just pray out of it if they do manage to fail a save.

[AstralUniverse]

That's with full Bardsong from a Song of the Heart bard, level 30 caster so full epic caster bonuses, etc, etc.

That is as good as a bard can now get for a summon.

So a few things.

First of all, it really sucks but it seems that the damage bonus from bard song and the damage bonus from the artificial gsf conjuration bonus (which is automatically baked into this spell) dont stack. the +2 is just replaced by a +3, when it's supposed to be a total of +5.

Secondly, the sheet lies. the AB there is actually 40 (because neither the gsf bonus or bard song show on the sheet, and they do stack).

Thirdly, you need a nature sequencer for another +3 str mod, then you can have 43 ab on the summon. It would be pretty decent ab for pve if the purpose of the summon (and it's other stats accordingly) was to jus tank and unlock content, not solo it fast for you, but if the summon is also as squishy as it is, it's pretty awful.

Fourthly, I've also took a glance at the other streams of this spell and I need to go wash my eyes with bleach.

[Peacelily]

Ya gotta show us!

[perseid]

As much as i want to agree but i just cannot do so.
When spell sequencer was first introduced...if anyone remember that thread post? It's as bad as this.
But it's actually pretty good, the way i see it. It's really not anything major.

This is a really weird way to frame people getting exasperated and giving up on continuing to give the same feedback that's just going to be ignored in favor of whatever appeals to the lead dev's personal vision. Especially when paired with subsequent announcements later down the line from other staff that boiled down to "Guys please respect the setting even though it might get randomly retconned out from under you". "Actually pretty good" is the silence of people giving up on wasted effort.