Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
The Mechanics of a Summoner
Hi All,
I have always enjoyed pet-oriented classes, but many games have not catered to the type of game play I find interesting, so I thought I would throw out some ideas and see what you all think.
When a summoner is mentioned, I always hope the focus of the class is on, well, summons. Ideally this means the caster themselves has very limited damage abilities of their own, if any. A game that came close to true summoner game play was Diablo 2 with the necromancer, where one could have large armies of skeletons or focus on golems which were stronger but less plentiful. The player’s abilities should focus on controlling minions and enhancing what they do. The variety of summoner abilities would focus on different minions for varying situations and defense abilities for the rather fragile caster. A summoner is understandably hard to balance because the minions are the ones in danger (at least in PvE), and at what point would the number of summons negatively affect visibility and game-play of others?
I propose that there be no hard-cap limit on the number of minions a summoner can have. To balance this, each summon could have long cast time, take mana for intial summon and then also drain mana from the caster over time. Let’s do away with the summon and forget mentality and focus on the resource management and summon ability/position orchestration. Interesting game play could come from this type of resource restriction. The player could have a mass of minions for a short amount of time for harder fights, one or two for longer (if the minions are not killed and are controlled well) or any combination in between.
Let me know what you think and if you have any improvements or ideas of your own!
Cheers
I have always enjoyed pet-oriented classes, but many games have not catered to the type of game play I find interesting, so I thought I would throw out some ideas and see what you all think.
When a summoner is mentioned, I always hope the focus of the class is on, well, summons. Ideally this means the caster themselves has very limited damage abilities of their own, if any. A game that came close to true summoner game play was Diablo 2 with the necromancer, where one could have large armies of skeletons or focus on golems which were stronger but less plentiful. The player’s abilities should focus on controlling minions and enhancing what they do. The variety of summoner abilities would focus on different minions for varying situations and defense abilities for the rather fragile caster. A summoner is understandably hard to balance because the minions are the ones in danger (at least in PvE), and at what point would the number of summons negatively affect visibility and game-play of others?
I propose that there be no hard-cap limit on the number of minions a summoner can have. To balance this, each summon could have long cast time, take mana for intial summon and then also drain mana from the caster over time. Let’s do away with the summon and forget mentality and focus on the resource management and summon ability/position orchestration. Interesting game play could come from this type of resource restriction. The player could have a mass of minions for a short amount of time for harder fights, one or two for longer (if the minions are not killed and are controlled well) or any combination in between.
Let me know what you think and if you have any improvements or ideas of your own!
Cheers
0
Comments
The horde management idea seems very cool though I get the feeling this would only work if every single player was a summoner. As in even with the restrictions you've listed it still seems drastically overpowered against all other classes. The idea seems to stretch from a summoner-centered game perspective which makes sense considering your interest in them. Maybe something like that will happen at a very high level and we can see some interesting battle mechanics come from that. Lots of people like you are ridiculously interested in the summoner class so I hope that Intrepid can deliver
I am sure this class could be balanced with the other classes as it is more of a numbers thing. In PvP, if a summoner makes a large number of weaker minions, other classes could counter with their AoE abilities. Rogues with stealth would have an easy time getting directly to the summoner and taking them out.
The largest balancing issue I see is with PvE. I would say a summoner should not be able to tank dungeons with minions, unless maybe they pick the tank as a secondary class choice giving minions more health? As far as questing goes, most games are balanced so that every class can solo the quest content. Fights with monsters using AoE may prove more difficult for summoners where as a hard hitting mob could prove more changing to a mage.
But what for me makes or breaks the class is aesthetics. Basically the look of the summons.
there are games where they are either really cute pets, small goblins or boring golems/elementals.
This is what simply breaks the class for me.
What makes the class for me are detailed humanoid types of summons.
Be it either a beautiful Nimph, a bad ass demon or undead soldier.
@sailawayeb
I absolutely agree that the aesthetics of the summons are paramount to the success of this class. While I am actually a fan of the elemental summons and golems, undead, demons and other creatures are fine too as long as they look good. One should also be able to tell what the role of the summon is by ho it looks. Large bulky creature should be more tanking, etc.
@Nekros_666
I am glad you also got to enjoy some of the summoner glory days with the D2 necromancer :).
Summons will reflect the summoner’s race. And summon skins will be available.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14luppZ3Ub8jmcw_aK65QWxYY4xa8qAo9zRfpYWBxOXE/edit#
Questions over questions
Then look in their past videos
Select 19/05 video.
Enjoy ;)