Family Summoning Tied to Divinity (Suggestion/Not Criticism)

TSG

TL;DR - Implement a "divine favor" feature tied to questing to gate family summoning = balancing solved.

Greetings all!

Yes, it is another post about family summoning. I'm not here to necessarily criticize the system itself, rather voice a way that it can remain as planned but with an additional requirement (that is even tied to the lore of Verra!)

I would propose that we tie in the use of family summoning in to the questing system in the sense that as we quest, we earn "Divine Favor". This makes the most sense to me as the divine gateways were originally formed by the Goddess of Creation. We also know that questing unlocks the lore of the game, and could be an important aspect of Divine Node religion progression. I feel this could fit very well into this space. By tying summoning into the questing system, this provides the developers a natural barrier to use that limits the players without introducing unnecessary factors.

Well, what would the system look like? It's simple. As I mentioned, as a person quests, you earn "divine favor". Once that player finishes enough quests and has the per-requisite divine favor, they can then summon a family member. This will reset their favor, after which they would need to continue questing to once again be able to summon. This can be modified for late game to specifically refer to divine quests from a divine node, perhaps in the form of tasks/dailies.

One complaint that I see quite often is the fact a player can create "summoning" alts that they can utilize to teleport them around the world of Verra. If this divine favor requirement to summon is implemented, this will limit a players ability to abuse alts, as that player would have to then spend the time questing on all of them to regain the divine favor. Additionally, this would remove the need for switching up any type of cool down for the summon ability, as the favor would already gate the time it takes to summon again. the amount of favor gained from quests would need to be tested by the devs, and more or less favor could be gained depending on the difficulty of the task/quest.

I feel by incorporating a very natural system such as gaining divine favor by questing not only complements the lore of the game, but incentivizes players to explore the world and creates a reliance on the divine node especially (important for those not interested at all in it currently). It solves the issue of being heavily/easily abused by alts, and it doesn't require random cool down periods, only the amount of time to recharge your divine favor bar.

I look forward to hearing your constructive criticisms and suggestions.

Tyrantor

I don't want to be forced to quest just to use an ability. If people want to load up on alts and multiple accounts just to summon their characters around the map then good for them don't punish the rest of us.

Beekeeper

Family summoning is meant for casuals to get their friends together, not as a lategame tactical tool. Gating it behind grinding or a deep quest chain assures that no casual player will ever get to use it, keeping it strictly for those kinds of ppayers who DO want to use it to set up a secret raid or other tactical stuff, basically the thing family summon is not supposed to enable.

Beck Altarr

Good idea, but as others have said, it hurts the casuals and I think the only reason it currently exists is for the casuals so they can play the game with others and not feel constantly behind. Perhaps a mix of both where it has a natural refresh timer, but you could do specific things to reduce it somewhat.

TSG

I appreciate all of the feedback! From what we have been told, quests throughout all of the game will be necessary to progress most classes/religions/professions (narrative quests/task quests/local government quests) which is why I tied it to quests specifically.

I do understand the concern regarding "casual" players. Killing dungeon bosses/raid bosses, and whatever else the devs decided upon could all grant divine favor, not necessarily just quests. Technically, anything that granted experience could also grant divine favor at a different rate, even if only to combat the "summon bot" abuse case. I simply wanted to introduce the design for feedback.

Beekeeper

Still, the whole family teleportation should be to make it easier for casual players to play with their friends, not a special bonus for extra dedicated players.

I get the approach of "lets give players this possibly overly strong feature, but at a price", it's just that in this case, it would be backwards and reward the wrong group.