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Drannok wrote:

Even in PnP, Evocation is the crap school.

Even in PnP, the most effect Wizards are the Conjurers and Necromancers and Enchanters, with a spare fireball just in case.

It's not just in NWN that Evocation is da poop and Summons and Control are better.

Yupp. And if it were the other way 'round, some people would complain that evocation was too powerful, as it would allow an arcane caster to outdamage the mundane characters. And if you just equalize everything, you have D&D4, and people complain (correctly, I believe) of robbing the game of its unique flavor. ;-)

Soundofastream:

The thing I intend to reduce is their AB and damage output. A better test would be to refrain from casting STR/GMW/Flame on your normal summons, although it's still not a great use of your playing hours.

Last time this kinda thing came up, it was when GS was made incompatible with high end summons, and some mage players complained that they had gone out and got completely squished in the Brog Wilderness, so we really needed to revert it, or the class was doomed. I went out with my mage and MONKEYSTOMPT my way up Brog Mountain, dipped my toe in the Spire, bumped into anther player so went off to the Wastes and ate them omnomnom. And I'm not even that good at operating mages.

So..um...I'm a little sceptical of any test results I didn't oversee myself.

What would be the purpose?

If the issue is soloing, then work on soloing, e. g. by working on the XP/loot formula. Trying to change mechanics for each and every class that supposedly is too good in soloing will be an endless project, and change more than you wanted to in the end.

If you nerf summoning spells/feats now, the next complaint will be about arcane control spells, then it'll come to mind that clerics also have Control Undead, after that then weaponmasters with DevCrit will be public enemy No 1, then HiPS (ab)use will get the axe, ... In the end, we'll all play level 1 commoners without feats.

Powergamers adapt to changes by creating the new flavor of the month character, and those who like(d) their characters and kept them are those that really suffer in the end. I've seen a game go down this road before. Twice, actually.

Evil-Wizard wrote:

What would be the purpose?

If the issue is soloing, then work on soloing, e. g. by working on the XP/loot formula. Trying to change mechanics for each and every class that supposedly is too good in soloing will be an endless project, and change more than you wanted to in the end.

If you nerf summoning spells/feats now, the next complaint will be about arcane control spells, then it'll come to mind that clerics also have Control Undead, after that then weaponmasters with DevCrit will be public enemy No 1, then HiPS (ab)use will get the axe, ... In the end, we'll all play level 1 commoners without feats.

Powergamers adapt to changes by creating the new flavor of the month character, and those who like(d) their characters and kept them are those that really suffer in the end. I've seen a game go down this road before. Twice, actually.

Yup. The road we go down by nerfing is a road that leads straight to Hell.

Hilariweep. This is not a nerf of classes. It is a toning down of a ZOMG gargantuan godkiller buff that they got a long time ago.

Uberuce wrote:

Blackdragon and Halen wrote:

I can only kill three things per day then I suck. So to balance that I should be able to kill mobs all day too.

Those three things can be gods on steroids and they're still dead meat. So....no?

Edit: Blackdragon, that was me talking about GMW/Keen versus Fireball. I notice you didn't mention the bit a line or so down where I said "You get your chance to be the Cannon when it's boss/PvP time"

Your NOT a cannon though unless you rely on horribly cheap spells. Im looking at you Maximised IGMS. Most bosses worth there salt are immune to 90% of the wizzie arsenal. Even normal spawns have so many hit points after level 17 or so that its just not worth trying to damage them, forcing you into the disabling roll or to just sit there. Spamming bosses with your most powerful spells is just not going to work. Actually thats not true. It works up until level 15 ish or so. About right after you move on from the beast men. I'll never forget the day my sorc got knocked into minus HP, was healed, got to her feet, expressed her sheer disgust for mountain giants before preceding to toast them all with gratuitous use of fireballs.

Im not saying Wizzies should be able to kill mobs all day, I just which that doing direct damage was such a poor choice of spell usage. Oh, and the blanket immunties some creatures possess doesnt help things one bit.

Oh unbuffed summons get murdered in most areas of there level. Especially with no support. Well thats true of the summon creature I - IX anyway.

Quote:

Your NOT a cannon though unless you rely on horribly cheap spells. Im looking at you Maximised IGMS. Most bosses worth there salt are immune to 90% of the wizzie arsenal

Ah, yes. I forgot you take that line of reasoning: X is overpowered, but hey, don't tone it down...just buff Y so much people use it instead.

And yes, they are immune to 90%. The 10% mages have to be bright enough to use instead will kill them dead with laughable ease.

Uberuce wrote:

Hilariweep. This is not a nerf of classes. It is a toning down of a ZOMG gargantuan godkiller buff that they got a long time ago.

Yeah, you're right. I really didn't put much effort into that.

Some summons are very strong. Those that are should be limited by their duration. Theres no point in nerfing them into the ground or people just wont use them but for some reason, that piece of reasoning escapes you. Oh, I forgot you take the reasoning X is so broken it doesnt matter about everything else or the few who'd rather have some variability in their spell usage and use Y instead of exploiting broken X. Yep, we're all in the retarded 90%. But hey, its your world. Yes I would like to see Y brought up to a usable standard. Want some clarificaion on Y? Y is evocation. Y is displacement, Enervation, ball lightning, mind fog, circle of death, mass charm, energy drain, weird, contagion. Y is all the dross that falls through the cracks in lieu of broken X.

You dont find anything wrong with blanket immunities? Then can I have epic warding back? No? Im sure 50/+20 nothing wont stop WMs huge crits or anything like that.

Uberuce wrote:

Soundofastream:

The thing I intend to reduce is their AB and damage output. A better test would be to refrain from casting STR/GMW/Flame on your normal summons, although it's still not a great use of your playing hours.

Last time this kinda thing came up, it was when GS was made incompatible with high end summons, and some mage players complained that they had gone out and got completely squished in the Brog Wilderness, so we really needed to revert it, or the class was doomed. I went out with my mage and MONKEYSTOMPT my way up Brog Mountain, dipped my toe in the Spire, bumped into anther player so went off to the Wastes and ate them omnomnom. And I'm not even that good at operating mages.

So..um...I'm a little sceptical of any test results I didn't oversee myself.

Its been a long while since I've played a mage, but actually, I was reasonably good with one on a level 40 server built for powerbuilds in terms of spawns. Orcs would do typically uber amounts of damage etc and spawns wouldn't last all too long. I'm sure, I'll not be nerfing any attempt to succeed. I just want to see/test to see if life without good summons is do-able as an average player playing an average mage at an average level. I'd say currently, that sums up nicely my own character and as I'm no powerbuilder with just a straightforward wizzy of average level, I'd say its as good a test as any.

A wizard's or cleric's fighting style changes very much from level to level, so, to properly evaluate their power, I'd say playing them from 1 to 30 or at least testing them at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 would be necessary.

Edit: I forgot level 2.

Evil-Wizard wrote:

A wizard's or cleric's fighting style changes very much from level to level, so, to properly evaluate their power, I'd say playing them from 1 to 30 or at least testing them at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 would be necessary.

seconded

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

Some summons are very strong. Those that are should be limited by their duration. Theres no point in nerfing them into the ground or people just wont use them but for some reason, that piece of reasoning escapes you.

"There's no point cleaning that plate, or they'll be no dirt on it!"

It's not just use, full stop, it's use to replace parties, mind.

Then nerf soloing.

Cut XP/loot for solos in half, for example. Hurts all supposed ub0r-solo-builds the same, and is easiest to do.

How's about we let Uce do his stuff because he seem's to be on the band wagon for balanced and fair play, without over powering any class?

I would also remind people of the dire predictions relating to the Reality Potions last year, and the nerfing of Gate previous to that, and the BLack Blade before that, as well as the GS/23+ thing I meantioned above.

So far we're on zero for four in terms of wrecking mages or Clerics as viable classes. Maybe this time the doomsayers will get it right at last? Oooh, it's exciting.

I agree with Selvec. Let the Scot do his thing and stop telling him you know better.

If the only reason to nerf summons is to stop soloing, why not do something about soloing directly? I just don't get the fixation on summons.

It was GS before, it's summoning now, it'll be Control Undead/Dominate Monster and Shapechange after that. Why not take the shortcut to success?

Selvec Darkon wrote:

How's about we let Uce do his stuff because he seem's to be on the band wagon for balanced and fair play, without over powering any class?

QFE

Actually, simply for PvM, Drannok is not even close to optimized can he can easily (if slowly) solo almost anywhere because of freak summons and domination.

In fact I ditched my summon because it felt wrong.

I might be sad if Dominate Monster gets the nerf bat too, but summons are ~really~ bonkers right now.

Having said all of this I'm also a player who would rather go do something else than go out and boss/monster/loot farm solo.

Oh an no, bringing summoning back in line won't kill mages. They would have to take drastic steps to kill mages. There are too many ways to make a mage effective.

I agree with Selvec and Galenson.

Let the Scot do his thing then complain about it -afterwards-.

They could for instance, start bringing in more spell casters (Asabi Shamans being quite a challenge already, especially against the Juggernaut summons) and actually make us work up a spell battle against them...

The number of fort. save warrior class monsters seems to be very high. Compared to timeweb spellcasting spiders (timestop, wail of banshee, hips spamming, sneak attack, greater spell mantle, blade barrier, etc) I've seen on other servers, the spellcaster monsters here are really weak and I'd love to have areas where we can engage spellcasters in pitched spell battles. I'd say mages would flock to such an area in droves and soloing mages in other areas wouldn't be such a big problem anymore (if it bothers DMs that much).

Class specific areas are great fun, allowing you to use the full extent of your class in groups or solo capacity without having to worry about just being a buffbot/healer/sidekick, support crew when you don't want to.

On the other hand, I remember there was this city that you had to assault and the -only- way to survive that is to have a party with a few high DR tanks + clerics whose sole role is to heal and raise during the encounters. Suddenly, Barbarians and DwD's felt welcome as did healer clerics.

You basically had to bash down the front door whilst getting hit by at least 15 to 20 high level AA's...and mages....etc...

Its all about area design, focus less on summons, more on area design I feel. Good design builds in such factors...Build areas with Banishment/Mords casters of high enough level and you'll soon be testing out mages and providing a real challenge to them.

Uberuce wrote:

I would also remind people of the dire predictions relating to the Reality Potions last year, and the nerfing of Gate previous to that, and the BLack Blade before that, as well as the GS/23+ thing I meantioned above.

So far we're on zero for four in terms of wrecking mages or Clerics as viable classes. Maybe this time the doomsayers will get it right at last? Oooh, it's exciting.

Good points Soundofastream. But ok then, balance away O' great Uce. Well done on the gate nerf. That pit fiend and balor really both suck and blow never to be used again, which im sure is what you intended. BBOD is now also a forgotten spell - Never seen anyone in a party or solo summon that. I never relied on GS so reality potions never really concerned me. While your at it, see if you can remove true sight form the pseudodragon, thats really broken. Weaken the familiars too. They dont need regen and damage reduction. Dont forget the druids animal companions as well!

But it just occured to me. With all that nerfing, that Wail spell is suddenly starting to look really powerful. I mean, just a lil too powerful... Look at it - DC 40 or so fort vs death is just too much, especially in an area of effect!!! It far outstrips the likes of dev crit. That radius should really be made smaller...you know, to the size of mass heal. But you know what? Dont stop there! Timestop should just be destroyed along with greater sanctuary and IGMS. Bibgy's line is horrendously powerful too. I mean how is a fighter meant to cope against these spells? Dominate allows a wizard to actually control a super powerful fire giant that can just totally waste even the most well built fighter. Thats just too much! How is this fair? Dont even get me started on Meteor Swarm. My gosh, the spell is just sheer...CARNAGE!

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

yadayada

The reason for nerfing GS, summons,... is that it forces the players of mages to get a party or live in relative danger, their other spells are still more then powerful enough.

In fact it's a social responsibility of the Amian development team in order to keep people from turning into extremely lazy beings.

The goal is to make so you can not longer hunt by doing one click to go to the next spawn, yawn while you put another handful of chips in your mouth and repeat the process.

Earlier civilizations failed to do this simple thing, and slowly lost control of bodily functions due to only being required to hang in a chair and operate the three mouse buttons on one hand, and for feeding purposes on the other.
They evolved so only three fingers remained and then later on became so lazy they didn't even want to turn on their PC's anymore and just decided to hang in their chairs.
Too lazy to dress up, they started to grow more bodyhair, too lazy to work their civilization crumbled and they had to live outdoors again, but their love for hanging never changed:

You can read more about them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-toed_sloth

Well, I tried it, I didn't summons the Juggy, just the death slaad and Black Blade of Disaster along with lesser summons and a 50/50 split between buffing and disabling spellss. It was more than a breeze, easy as pie..but...it took far longer to kill all the summons from the lost river to the temple of Eight.

I ran out of damage spells (only had a few for finishing/emergencies) too early. I spent a lot more time doing the 100 m mage circle dash, being constantly chased by spiders, etc...

It was totally do-able but much, much slower. A level 18 weaponmaster would I think, have taken far less time smashing through the spawns.

The time wasting was mostly having to run away from the nasty critters who seemed to go for the lowest AC (I think?). If that's how the AI works, then mage will nearly always be the target.

belgianbonzai wrote:

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

yadayada

The reason for nerfing GS, summons,... is that it forces the players of mages to get a party or live in relative danger, their other spells are still more then powerful enough.

In fact it's a social responsibility of the Amian development team in order to keep people from turning into extremely lazy beings.

The goal is to make so you can not longer hunt by doing one click to go to the next spawn, yawn while you put another handful of chips in your mouth and repeat the process.

Earlier civilizations failed to do this simple thing, and slowly lost control of bodily functions due to only being required to hang in a chair and operate the three mouse buttons on one hand, and for feeding purposes on the other.
They evolved so only three fingers remained and then later on became so lazy they didn't even want to turn on their PC's anymore and just decided to hang in their chairs.
Too lazy to dress up, they started to grow more bodyhair, too lazy to work their civilization crumbled and they had to live outdoors again, but their love for hanging never changed:

You can read more about them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-toed_sloth

In Wizards handbook, it states quite categorically that Conjurer's are one of the laziest mages around. Its actually PART of the roleplay of them to be lazy and get their summons to do things...

If... and this is if I'm reading it right... the goal here is to keep mages and clerics from being able to summon up a critter and sit in GS or Invis and let the critter do all the work. Effectively keeping them from being able to solo areas with the current ease. This is being done in hopes that people will party up to go out and tackle areas.

I'm not saying that nerfing summons is going to destroy the classes.... I just think it's cutting off your nose to spite your face. As several others here have said, if the goal is to make people party up, nerf the XP you get from going out on your own. I trust Ruce to do a good job working on the summons, but I don't want to see another class become the fashionable one to complain about next month and get nerfed, too. If mages and clerics suddenly can't solo an area, but a Druid can still run around shapeshifted without a scratch, are a druid's shapes going to be nerfed to encourage group work? (That was just an example, I really don't know anything about druids. It's just the first example to pop into my head)

Ah no no, druids are fine because it has been suggested that they are really weak PVP ::nod nod::

Galenson wrote:

EDK may require 4 feats to use effectively but to get the death paragon it requires 28 cleric levels...

Are you -sure- about the 28 levels? I've read other threads that say the summons maxes out at level 21 or level 26, depending on the author.

It'd be nice to get some accurate info on these things.

It's 28, Unless someone has changed it.

And while I am posting this I might also add that everything is fine as it is so don't change anything.

Nope, I didnt change it.

Yes its 28.

Also Dev Crit has to be removed so fighters loose the abilirt to solo.

A fighter with Dev Crit can solo better then a Mage using EDK.

Nerfing causes a viscious circle and has been proven in any type of game that one nerf leads to another nerf, and it will not encourage people to party

Halecta wrote:

Also Dev Crit has to be removed so fighters loose the abilirt to solo.

A fighter with Dev Crit can solo better then a Mage using EDK.

Nerfing causes a viscious circle and has been proven in any type of game that one nerf leads to another nerf, and it will not encourage people to party

Shifters with dragonshape and dev crit fighters can solo the Abyss. Wizards would be lucky to last one spawn with a fully buffed entourage of summons. So yeah, many classes can solo a lot of places, and some do it better than wizards.

Lesquille wrote:

Halecta wrote:

Also Dev Crit has to be removed so fighters loose the abilirt to solo.

A fighter with Dev Crit can solo better then a Mage using EDK.

Nerfing causes a viscious circle and has been proven in any type of game that one nerf leads to another nerf, and it will not encourage people to party

Shifters with dragonshape and dev crit fighters can solo the Abyss. Wizards would be lucky to last one spawn with a fully buffed entourage of summons. So yeah, many classes can solo a lot of places, and some do it better than wizards.

So that begs the question; if wizard/cleric summons are getting nerfed to encourage group work, what are the other classes going to be loosing to encourage the same?

as I said in another thread, we should all be clones. that way no one can complain about X being overpowered because -everything- would be the same.

Last edited by Lesquille on Thu, Feb 12 2009, 2:13 AM, edited 1 time in total.

ainjyll wrote:

So that begs the question; if wizard/cleric summons are getting nerfed to encourage group work, what are the other classes going to be loosing to encourage the same?

Dunno. Seems there's a concerted effort here to destroy soloing, because it's evil and wrong. But only if wizards do it.

I guess you could say it's different for wizards because they can summon and buff for free, while a fighter has to buy potions and scrolls to survive alone. However, isn't having better access to magic the point of being a wizard?

Edit: And yeah, summons are totally not a replacement for a party. They allow the wizard to solo at all, but I'll take a party of characters over soloing with summons anyday. There's no EXP bonus for having summons, like there is with a real group, for example.

When I've played fighters who need some serious buffing, I've been in parties (the vast majority of times in fact) where the wizard spends all day buffing himself and ignoring everyone else other than the odd flame weapon spell. Other than being plain stupid and unproductive, it annoys all the non-buffer types who thought the wizard would play their role of buff bot.

The trick is to get wizards to buff party members and make that normal culture to do so. But, when soloing, I'd much prefer to buff a summons than having to spend most of my time running around in circles in hit and run style fights with monsters because the AI makes them target you for having low AC or whatever.

In a party, usually the fighters will get it off your tail, not so when soloing. Change the AI before you start messing with summons please. In some cases you can premonition up and acid sheath them dead but that only lasts so long, then its back to the mage circle dance as I found out countless times yesterday where I didn't hide in GS and used spells to attack them, etc...

Soloing doesn't affect anyone else, so what's the issue? Partying up is still more attractive as an option to 90% of magi. They just need to learn to play their role and buff fighters is all.

What's sad is that the Mage's end up being balanced more for what they could do against players than what they do in pve.

Mage>PC's>Monsters>Mages. It's a vicious Cycle. The difference? Unless you focus on the conjuration aspect and do the boring old summon/hide in invis/GS bit, you can't really solo with a mage. The saves are too high and damage/effects are too low or infrequent. It's dull when the only reason you are in a party is for your buffs, rather than your ability to fight. That's what a bard is for.

Halen_Van wrote:

It's dull when the only reason you are in a party is for your buffs, rather than your ability to fight.

He hit the nail there.

Damage-dealing spells have been rendered pretty much useless in PvM at higher levels.

^
||

What they said. I have my first/only mage up to lvl 19 now, and it's been a boring struggle to this point. I'm reconsidering the entire endeavour.

As has been rightly said, a mage without good, strong summons better park it on a bench until a party comes by and invites him to be their buff bot.

It's frustrating they've been nerfed into one-dimensional, one-function characters. On the other hand, it gives me a lot more time to hang out around town and RP, warming a bench and chatting it up.

Halecta wrote:

A fighter with Dev Crit can solo better then a Mage using EDK.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. What a flat out lie.

as I said in another thread, we should all be clones. that way no one can complain about X being overpowered because -everything- would be the same.

why don't we just leave the nerfing class X alone? you nerf this then you will nerf that then nerf that and then that and that. why not as I said, just make us all clones. no one can complain about balance issues then for there would be -no diffrences- items? same. states? same. skills? same. feats? same spells? same. everything would be the same. there would be no diffrences that way no one can whine nerf this.

Gary Gygax stated that mages are balanced overall, because at lower levels, they are weak and its not until the higher levels where they become extremely powerful. Thus, when you average it out over the length of the class, they're actually well balanced. Its just that on Amia, compared to other servers, one can level from 1 to 30 in 24 hours (well, that's the record time so far). In constrast, when I was playing a spellcaster elsewhere with level caps, I sat on level 12 for 1 RL month before getting an unlock and another 2 RL months at level 16 as a Conjurer...(Max level there was 25).

Took me two irl years to get Halen to 29 O.o

Anywho, I've always thought Mages were the people you really didn't want to tick off, because they could decide to explode and dish out to you 1/15th of what they can do for the rest of the day at epic levels, and you'd be a smoking toast pile, or at least, a bit more cautious. If you aren't a smoking toast pile, that mage is going to eat it.

Now against mobs, that means he's got about 2-5 encounters before he's spent, and needs to rest. Killing those encounters however may take less than 8 in-game hours.

Most of you should wake up and smell the Napalm. You can't stop soloing so don't try. People even solo in PnP DnD. Remove one way to solo from people, they find another. Your evidence are the GS changes.

Soloing is unavoidable so live with it.

Quote:

Soloing is like head shots: Those that can, do it. Those that can't, Complain.

Halen_Van wrote:

Took me two irl years to get Halen to 29 O.o

Anywho, I've always thought Mages were the people you really didn't want to tick off, because they could decide to explode and dish out to you 1/15th of what they can do for the rest of the day at epic levels, and you'd be a smoking toast pile, or at least, a bit more cautious. If you aren't a smoking toast pile, that mage is going to eat it.

Now against mobs, that means he's got about 2-5 encounters before he's spent, and needs to rest. Killing those encounters however may take less than 8 in-game hours.

this is well said, and makes good sense. I guess in my case, with my sorceress, it's just an annoyance, even with such a perfectly logical explanation such as yours Halen, that she can't use her spells to hunt in general (except for buffing others to high heaven and back), but a melee'er can run around killing things all day, and just pop a heal or get another buff when necessary.

I don't mean just soloing, either. Even group hunting, a mage, after buffing teh group all sexy like, and keeping a good handful of mass hastes available (pref. extended), really can only toss like 1 spell per spawn, if teh group is mowing the spawns down quickly. Around 20+, that means you might do a little dent, in a lot of cases.

I just hate being a klingon buffbot. But maybe that means mage isn't the class for me then. (And it isn't, really. I enjoyed it, but I enjoy cleric more. And BG.)

I don't think there should be any nerfs, save for maybe making leveling take alot longer to acchive so that getting to epic levels is alot longer, but that really isn't a nerf IMO. I myself don't want to see the summons weakened.

Oh, I don't want them weakened either - though I do want them balanced out a bit. It annoys me when something stupid like your alignment determines whether you get a strong or a pathetic summon.

Cori wrote:

Oh, I don't want them weakened either - though I do want them balanced out a bit. It annoys me when something stupid like your alignment determines whether you get a strong or a pathetic summon.

Ideally we could have BoT pages that grant a variety of different summons with different strengths and weaknesses, but that'd be a lot of work.

a question about a summons

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