Feedback on Summoning- Big Problems at Low/Mid levels.

[Uccisore]

I first noticed the issue when I picked up Summon Undead, and leveled Death to 4, and used it alongside my Summon Monster, with Life leveled to 4.

Summon Death was giving me Zombies and Wraiths. Zombies about 60% of the time.

Summon Monster was giving me Wraiths, Ghouls, Flayed Ones, Undead Pirates, and of course, a host of non-undead monsters too.

Why would two equally leveled spells have such an obvious discrepency, when Undead was more expensive? I asked the community, the community told me, basically, that nobody cares about abilities that low, and that I need to level up. Or just use summon monster.

That seemed odd to me- usually with these smaller games, the player base cares a ton above development. But, I figured maybe they're right, level 4 is no big deal.

So now, I've leveled Life to 8. I didn't want to spend the money on Death, so I bought Summon Insect, since it also uses Life. Here's what I found:

Summon Insect @ Life 8: Giant Spiders, Triops, Giant Slugs, and the occasional Worker Ant that I've been seeing since Life 4.

Summon Monster @ Life 8: Fire Elementals, Water Elementals, Vampires, and an Oculus.

See the problem? In case it's not obvious, I WAS getting giant slugs, spiders, and triops under summon monster, back at Life 5, but they stopped showing up, because they're too weak to show up at Life 8.

Unless you're using Summon Insect.

Now, I haven't been in the game very long, so maybe there's something obvious I'm missing, but in case you don't know:

Summon Monster: 3rd level Life Magic, reagent costs 1 gold.
Summon Insect: 4th level Life Magic, reagent costs 1 gold.
Summon Undead: 6th level Death Magic, reagent costs 1 gold.

Summon Monster is clearly and explicitly better than summon Undead through to level 4, and better than Summon Insect through to level 8. Not only does it summon better creatures, but it costs less mana and it's reagent cost is the same. It's not for a lack of monsters, and it's not for a lack of attention (the devs just worked on summons). I could test summon golem, animal, or demon, but since I've been seeing all of those show up in summon monster, I'm expecting it will just be more of the same.

[Morphan]

Did you read the news? :/ They made a summoning update so you should expect to see a lot more random and weaker/stronger monsters to give variety.

[Uccisore]

I didn't even do any of this until after that update occurred. My comparison test on Summon Insect and Summon Monster @ Life 8 was done this morning.

[Halloween]

Originally Posted by Uccisore

Summon Insect @ Life 8: Giant Spiders, Triops, Giant Slugs, and the occasional Worker Ant that I've been seeing since Life 4.

There's an obvious fault. It's summon insect, not summon bugs. Spiders, Triops, and slugs are NOT insects.

[ame]

Originally Posted by Uccisore

Summon Monster is clearly and explicitly better than summon Undead through to level 4, and better than Summon Insect through to level 8. Not only does it summon better creatures, but it costs less mana and it's reagent cost is the same. It's not for a lack of monsters, and it's not for a lack of attention (the devs just worked on summons). I could test summon golem, animal, or demon, but since I've been seeing all of those show up in summon monster, I'm expecting it will just be more of the same.

You're right, everything is inferior to summon monster. To be a good summoner, all you need to know is that summon monster is the best spell and you're good to go. All new summoners have to know this or it's basically a waste of a character. The other spells aren't realistic options for leveling up.
FYI At 11 life:
Summon monster = firedrake, stone golem
Summon insect = giant slug, soldier ant, giant scorpion,
Summon animal = wolf, python, lion, cobra, viper

My notable summoning experiences...

Before I could summon a firedrake (best summon pre-ghast and mono) I had to use a different weapon. The baby summons take way to long to do anything.

I'm saving up my gold so I can skip the levels between 11 and 18 life since that appears to be a dead zone of bad summons.

Variety is fun, but it doesn't help much, especially at higher levels. The ability to predict your summon is more helpful than variety

Here's my main thing, caused by the firedrake summon in particular...
I feel like you should be able to see your summon's combat messages. My summon kills me a lot because I run into its dragon breath. I know it sounds like a patience problem, but it's because every now and then you have to check on the summon to make sure it's still fighting, otherwise you'll both sit there wasting time. To get xp you have to be in the same map, and maps aren't always very roomy. This leads to a lot of deaths and near misses when I check on it. The worst thing is when my summon gets my hp low and something else gets the last hit, causing xp loss (like poison). It's always a 50/50 if I'm going to lose xp or not. Maybe this is what makes the firedrake summon classify as a life 11, maybe it's supposed to be this difficult. I just find it a little on the rough side. Even if I could see the combat messages I'd still be dying a lot.

[Uccisore]

Any news on summon elemental or golem? I'm expecting about the same, since monster does generate both of those.

So...of the 7 summoning spells, Monster is the only one worth using, and even within Summon Monster, there's one obvious Best Monster to summon? This game just got a lot less interesting!

Are the the other aspects of the game like that? Do Evokers all know the One Best Attack Spell to use? Do all the Meleers use the same weapon, and wear the same armor?

[ame]

Originally Posted by Uccisore

So...of the 7 summoning spells, Monster is the only one worth using, and even within Summon Monster, there's one obvious Best Monster to summon? This game just got a lot less interesting!

Are the the other aspects of the game like that? Do Evokers all know the One Best Attack Spell to use? Do all the Meleers use the same weapon, and wear the same armor?

You have to remember that until recently, it was super hard to be a summoner at all. Summoning is better now... but you can't expect it to be perfect (or even good) yet. I think your opinions are right, and the other summoning spells need a lot of work, but summoning isn't going to -poof- and be on par with the types that've been getting played by lots of people for a long time. The stuff's just not available for us summoners yet. If the game just got less interesting for you, the thing that was making it interesting in the first place was probably a misconception. Summoners are basically a new class and if you get to the party early you have to wait for the real fun to arrive?

[Uccisore]

I can be patient, I suppose. I know that summoning just got a revamp...I think I was mostly worked up because the in game community seemed to not understand that there was a problem at all.


Anyways, hopefully having a thread up that documents what's what will push some changes along. A lot of it, like the levels at which certain monsters appear in the various summons, seems like it would be easy to address, but I'm no expert.

[Clubbz]

Originally Posted by Uccisore

I can be patient, I suppose. I know that summoning just got a revamp...I think I was mostly worked up because the in game community seemed to not understand that there was a problem at all.

Problem? There really is no problem, its not that big of a deal that they don't summon the same caliber of monster. Not all spells are equal in strength and usefulness. Its up to you to experiment and find out what works. The same goes with all types of characters, new players who start out find out that on melee characters not all weapons are of the same strength and its just a matter of quality or price for weapons. Magic of all types works the same, not necessarily the price and quality comparison, but its just a matter of finding what works the best(or the most fun) and going with it.

[Kabroz]

Originally Posted by ame

At 11 life:
Summon monster = firedrake, stone golem

Last i checked, which was BEFORE the great Hiatus mind you, those were life 10 summons. Have a nice day

Originally Posted by Uccisore

Any news on summon elemental or golem? I'm expecting about the same, since monster does generate both of those.

Summon golem's best summon is the diamond golem, at level 14 earth magic, I think (last tested about a month or two ago..) before that you can get the iron/lead/stone golems at around 10 earth, if that helps any.

Originally Posted by Uccisore

Do Evokers all know the One Best Attack Spell to use? Do all the Meleers use the same weapon, and wear the same armor?

Well, I can confidently say that most, if not all, mages have fireball/blizzard/frostwave as their basic combat spells. They are the best damage dealers, i think, after the spell system re-vamp (and even before, to some extent) but many mages use other spells, depending on what element they wanted to "branch out on" so to speak, for example: air magic and thunderstorm/lightning bolt.

As for Meleers, we don't all use the same weapons. Although if you're playing a melee class that has a Jewel weapon available, then one of those weapons will definitely be your end-game weapon. However, for armor, it really depends on what you want your character to be able to do and what the guild restrictions are. Most Paladins and Axemen are armed to the teeth with platinum. Other people are geared up with non-bungling(allows for the casting of spells) cloth/leather armor, because of guild restrictions. And some (Cavies, I would think) just don't care what kind of armor they use as long as it gives some sort of bonus to dodge or the like.