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Suggestions for Summoner, skills and gameplay from a veteran MMORPG player
Milotrix
Member, Founder
Hello, PC based mmorpgs are my favourite games to play, and have been playing them since I was a young teenager. Games I played (but not limited to, and in no particular order) include World of Warcraft, Aion, Archeage, Guildwars 2, Maplestory, Perfect World, Allods, Neverwinter, Cabal Online, Runes of Magic, Flyff, Rift, LOTRO, Blade and Soul, The Secret World, D&D online, Vindictus, Lost Ark, City of Heroes, Terra, Wildstar, Black Desert Online, SOLO, SWTOR, and a few others.
I mainly just want to give my opinion and suggestions on a few things:
Number of skills available for use at a time on your hot bar:
There has been a trend towards less amount of skills available for use on your hotbar at a time in newer MMORPGS…. and while I understand that it is redundant to have more skills when you’re only going to be using a few of them, I personally find it more fun, interesting and immersive when we have access to more skills and more variety of skills that we can use depending on the situation.
For example, Some skills for single target, some for aoe, some that are CCs, some that are support/buffs, some for movement/manoeuvrability etc…It can make combat pretty boring when you are just spamming the same skills over and over. I think somewhere around 20-25 skills is a good amount to have, perhaps more or less depending on the personal playstyle of the person and the build they create.
Summoner suggestions:
The summoner class is my go to class in most mmorpgs. So here is my suggestion for it:
What summoner should be like:
-Summoner should be able to summon multiple pets at a time, each one with a specific role. Perhaps with certain subclass combinations, you instead summon a single pet that is stronger, but again have options for different pet types (tank/healer/support).
-The summoner themselves should be able to contribute independently, aside from their pets, such as casting damage/healing/support skills, while their pets are also damaging/healing/supporting at the same time.
-The summoner should be able to control the pets, but also be able to set some skills on auto cast, so you’re not having to do everything.
-The summoner should have skills that are used to directly support your pets, such as heals/buffs that work only on your pets. Or other skills that interact with your pets only, instead of other people.
-Pets that you summon, should remain permanently until either they die or are unsummoned.
-Pets should be more than just an extension of the summoner. Some games I played had a summoner where the pet just followed you and would shoot at your target. This felt pretty pointless. A pet should contribute more in a way that the summoner can’t already do directly on their own.
What summoner should *not* be like:
-Please do not make it so that the summoner is just playing solely through their pets. I played summoner in sword of legends online, and basically when you cast a skill, the summoner would just dance around, and the skill you cast would be done by your pet only. This felt completely pointless and redundant because I felt like I might as well just play a mage, and when I cast a skill, it would come directly through me, which would be completely equivalent. The summoner did not feel like a summoner at all. A good summoner class should have damage/healing/support skills coming from both the summoner directly *and* their pets at the same time.
-Do not make pets useless for boss battles. In some games I played, your summons were made useless during bosses because they were just killed by the boss’s aoe, or would make the fight more difficult for certain mechanics due to their bad AI or simply because they were there.
- Do not make pets summoned with a time limit, forcing you to repeatedly having to summon them every fight which is pretty annoying. Exception to this is perhaps an ultimate summon that is stronger.
A good example of a well made summoner class:
so far my favourite iteration of the summoner class is Perfect World’s Mystic class. The Mystic in PW was able to summon 4 pets at a time, each one with a specialty, one was melee physical damage dealer (with cc), one a ranged magic damage dealer (that could also silence the target), one was a tank (that had aoe damage and debuffs), and one was a support (that cast shields and heals). An additional “ultimate” pet that could be summoned temporarily that was more powerful than all the others.
Additionally, the mystic could summon stationary plants that had different effects, such as attacking, debuffing or healing. Furthermore, the mystic themselves had access to damage skills (both instant and over time), some healing skills, as well as skills that interacted with the summons, such as temporarily empowering your pets, taking power from your pets, or lysing/destroying your plant summons for specific effects.
This created a very dynamic and fun class, that was a “jack of all trades-master of none” type of class that could switch focus depending on the situation. The tank pet with aid of heals could tank pretty well, but not as long or as good as the actual tank class, they could heal quite well but lacked the support skills of an actual healer class, and could also deal a good amount of damage but not as high as pure dps classes. In a party this meant that the tank pet could tank temporarily in case the tank died, giving enough time for the tank to get revived, and the mystic would throw out a mix of dps and heals that allowed them to do a good amount of damage while also helping keep the party alive. The mix of instant and over time skills meant that the mystic always had ticks of damage or heals going out which allowed them the freedom to switch between them as needed.
Cooperation, player housing, pvp, instant travel, and Final thoughts
Encouraging cooperation:
The thing I enjoy most about mmorpgs, is playing with others, cooperating and working together to achieve goals. So I would really like to see this game having lots of things that encourage working together with other players, some things for small parties, while other things for entire guilds. I think it would also be nice to have both guilds and alliances comprised of say 3 guilds.
Player housing
While I think it’s nice to give players their own house on their own, I think it would also be nice to allow groups of friends to be able to get together and have a larger homestead that we can share, and have different resources for growing crops/materials and crafting. I believe AOC is already implementing something like this, so I just want to say that it’s something I really like.
PVP
As someone who enjoys pvp I love the sound of node siege, and caravans that allow the player to opt in for pvp without forcing them to have to do pvp, this is a great balance that satisfies both pvp and pve players. I hope that you continue to make pvp something that has an impact, and is not just meaningless pointless killing of each other. I also really like the idea that caravans are a high risk, high reward type of pvp, ie. Maybe traveling through more dangerous/further routes, leads to greater yield of payout, while you still have the option of shorter/safer routes, that yield less of a payout. I also hope that you continue keeping pvp as part of the open world, and not just instanced. Although some instanced pvp can be added as well. Again, I believe AOC is already going in this direction, I just want to say that this is great.
Instant Travel
I understand that you do not want to add too much instant travel in the game because it defeats the purpose of having an open world, however I just want to say that we should have some degree of access to instant travel or air ships that take us to places to some degree. Some of us have limited time to play, and I don’t want to have to spent 20 mins just running from one location to another.
Final thoughts
Overall, I am very happy with the direction that this game is going in. I have been excited about this game since it was still in its crowdfunding stages. I very much look forward to playing it.
I mainly just want to give my opinion and suggestions on a few things:
Number of skills available for use at a time on your hot bar:
There has been a trend towards less amount of skills available for use on your hotbar at a time in newer MMORPGS…. and while I understand that it is redundant to have more skills when you’re only going to be using a few of them, I personally find it more fun, interesting and immersive when we have access to more skills and more variety of skills that we can use depending on the situation.
For example, Some skills for single target, some for aoe, some that are CCs, some that are support/buffs, some for movement/manoeuvrability etc…It can make combat pretty boring when you are just spamming the same skills over and over. I think somewhere around 20-25 skills is a good amount to have, perhaps more or less depending on the personal playstyle of the person and the build they create.
Summoner suggestions:
The summoner class is my go to class in most mmorpgs. So here is my suggestion for it:
What summoner should be like:
-Summoner should be able to summon multiple pets at a time, each one with a specific role. Perhaps with certain subclass combinations, you instead summon a single pet that is stronger, but again have options for different pet types (tank/healer/support).
-The summoner themselves should be able to contribute independently, aside from their pets, such as casting damage/healing/support skills, while their pets are also damaging/healing/supporting at the same time.
-The summoner should be able to control the pets, but also be able to set some skills on auto cast, so you’re not having to do everything.
-The summoner should have skills that are used to directly support your pets, such as heals/buffs that work only on your pets. Or other skills that interact with your pets only, instead of other people.
-Pets that you summon, should remain permanently until either they die or are unsummoned.
-Pets should be more than just an extension of the summoner. Some games I played had a summoner where the pet just followed you and would shoot at your target. This felt pretty pointless. A pet should contribute more in a way that the summoner can’t already do directly on their own.
What summoner should *not* be like:
-Please do not make it so that the summoner is just playing solely through their pets. I played summoner in sword of legends online, and basically when you cast a skill, the summoner would just dance around, and the skill you cast would be done by your pet only. This felt completely pointless and redundant because I felt like I might as well just play a mage, and when I cast a skill, it would come directly through me, which would be completely equivalent. The summoner did not feel like a summoner at all. A good summoner class should have damage/healing/support skills coming from both the summoner directly *and* their pets at the same time.
-Do not make pets useless for boss battles. In some games I played, your summons were made useless during bosses because they were just killed by the boss’s aoe, or would make the fight more difficult for certain mechanics due to their bad AI or simply because they were there.
- Do not make pets summoned with a time limit, forcing you to repeatedly having to summon them every fight which is pretty annoying. Exception to this is perhaps an ultimate summon that is stronger.
A good example of a well made summoner class:
so far my favourite iteration of the summoner class is Perfect World’s Mystic class. The Mystic in PW was able to summon 4 pets at a time, each one with a specialty, one was melee physical damage dealer (with cc), one a ranged magic damage dealer (that could also silence the target), one was a tank (that had aoe damage and debuffs), and one was a support (that cast shields and heals). An additional “ultimate” pet that could be summoned temporarily that was more powerful than all the others.
Additionally, the mystic could summon stationary plants that had different effects, such as attacking, debuffing or healing. Furthermore, the mystic themselves had access to damage skills (both instant and over time), some healing skills, as well as skills that interacted with the summons, such as temporarily empowering your pets, taking power from your pets, or lysing/destroying your plant summons for specific effects.
This created a very dynamic and fun class, that was a “jack of all trades-master of none” type of class that could switch focus depending on the situation. The tank pet with aid of heals could tank pretty well, but not as long or as good as the actual tank class, they could heal quite well but lacked the support skills of an actual healer class, and could also deal a good amount of damage but not as high as pure dps classes. In a party this meant that the tank pet could tank temporarily in case the tank died, giving enough time for the tank to get revived, and the mystic would throw out a mix of dps and heals that allowed them to do a good amount of damage while also helping keep the party alive. The mix of instant and over time skills meant that the mystic always had ticks of damage or heals going out which allowed them the freedom to switch between them as needed.
Cooperation, player housing, pvp, instant travel, and Final thoughts
Encouraging cooperation:
The thing I enjoy most about mmorpgs, is playing with others, cooperating and working together to achieve goals. So I would really like to see this game having lots of things that encourage working together with other players, some things for small parties, while other things for entire guilds. I think it would also be nice to have both guilds and alliances comprised of say 3 guilds.
Player housing
While I think it’s nice to give players their own house on their own, I think it would also be nice to allow groups of friends to be able to get together and have a larger homestead that we can share, and have different resources for growing crops/materials and crafting. I believe AOC is already implementing something like this, so I just want to say that it’s something I really like.
PVP
As someone who enjoys pvp I love the sound of node siege, and caravans that allow the player to opt in for pvp without forcing them to have to do pvp, this is a great balance that satisfies both pvp and pve players. I hope that you continue to make pvp something that has an impact, and is not just meaningless pointless killing of each other. I also really like the idea that caravans are a high risk, high reward type of pvp, ie. Maybe traveling through more dangerous/further routes, leads to greater yield of payout, while you still have the option of shorter/safer routes, that yield less of a payout. I also hope that you continue keeping pvp as part of the open world, and not just instanced. Although some instanced pvp can be added as well. Again, I believe AOC is already going in this direction, I just want to say that this is great.
Instant Travel
I understand that you do not want to add too much instant travel in the game because it defeats the purpose of having an open world, however I just want to say that we should have some degree of access to instant travel or air ships that take us to places to some degree. Some of us have limited time to play, and I don’t want to have to spent 20 mins just running from one location to another.
Final thoughts
Overall, I am very happy with the direction that this game is going in. I have been excited about this game since it was still in its crowdfunding stages. I very much look forward to playing it.
3
Comments
Maining Wild Blade, I’m more happy to not have pet summons per say. The DND manuals, Diablo Druid, WoW Druid, Enhacement Shaman, Surv Hunter, GW 2 Ranger (soulbeast), ESO Warden are around my guess of what it’ll shape up to be.
Like you be Im looking forward Summoner.
Do we know what basic summons summoner would have before a secondary archetype is chosen? Will it just be a bear that gets more tankier if you chose tank secondary?
Maybe the Beastmaster would have only a single customizable pet, which you can build to be different, with a small skill tree to build the pet based upon the type of pet you tame.
The Conjurer have various pets for different situations that are powerful. I am thinking like old school Magicians from EQ that have Earth/Fire/Water/Air pets that can be used in different situations that are quite powerful.
Necromancer might have more limited duration pets and a weaker permanent pet. I am thinking more along the lines of EQ2, where you have a pet, that grows in strength as you level, maybe with a couple of types, but there is also a whole set of skills that are limited duration, that swarm your target.
Enchanter would be an interesting one that might have two different kinds that you can summon multiple to cause confusion/chaos?
The same can be said for the Shadowmancer, using shadows to teleport to or cause confusion.
The Spellmancer might be another class that is like the Beastmaster, that is customizable, but more along the lines of a golem instead of a beast. Also, more arcane in origin instead of natural.
The Wild Blade and Brood Warden are ones that I find hard to figure out.
Personally, as someone who is set on trying falconer (ranger/summoner) as first main, I'd hope that the summoner secondary gives us access to either:
1) A permanent bird companion that can be specced into filling a more DPS-, utility or tank role. Ideally, I'd like them to have augments/talent trees of their own.
2) A temporary Summon that is more in line with the ghost heart (from Pillars of Eternity 2) - perhaps we'd have multiple kinds of birds that all share CD so we'd have to choose which one would be best for the situation we're in.
The most important thing to me is that it gives just a bit of the summoners versatility. I'd be very disappointed if I go summoner as secondary archetype, and all I get is a small DPS companion with little to no other uses.
So, primary vs secondary Summoner, really would just be how much your class needs the summon.
A Falconer vs Beastmaster, I would think the Beastmaster to be melee focused with a big monster/beast that is highly customizable. The Falconer (which I honestly don't like, I wish it was more along the lines of just a Ranger with a pet (just like Hunter from WoW)) will have a customizable pet but focuses more on ranged combat and the pet has a small subset off abilities that you can trigger things off of.
A Summoner secondary would, to me, means how much the class relies on it's summon. A primary Summoner losing their pet would greatly hamper it's dps/utility/ect. A secondary Summoner losing their pet would lose only some dps/utility/ect.
Thank you!
From what I read, secondary archetype seems to influence what you can summon. Eg. multiple weaker pets or 1 stronger one.... Necromancer I suspect potentially summons a greater amount of weaker skeletons that last temporarily instead of being permanent. etc Summoner/wizard combo maybe summons elementals.
Also I read of a possibility a certain archetype combination that makes you summon blades that follow you and attack for you instead of pets.
We will have to wait and see... I also suspect that summoner will be the last class that will get showcased.
You want a horde of skeletons you can summon 10 skeletons, but you want to summon a massive flesh construct you can only get one. Other summons take up 2, 3, or 5 points each allowing you to summon different combinations and build what you want/need for each engagement.
I also think a great way to avoid stale summoner gameplay would be if on your skill bar If a summon cannot be summoned due to that cap the ability flips over into an activated ability for that monster.
Either way, summoners are very hit or miss in games and I am looking forward to seeing what Intrepid does with them.
This sounds like a fun and interesting idea. My only concern is that people will just min-max it to find the best combination of summons for maximum effectiveness and everyone will just end up using that because it will be very difficult to balance every possible combination of summons.
But it kind of goes in line with everything else they have where if you make so many options it's hard to find a "best" choice. Especially since each encounter might have a different better combination.
There actually isn't really that many classes. There are technically only 8 classes... the secondary archetype you pick changes/augments your primary skills but doesn't add different skills.
It's not that there's something wrong with min-maxing, it's that if you can have different combinations of summons that take varying number of points totaling up to 10, then people will just min-max the optimal summons to have, and will always just run that same amount, which will make this point system pointless and redundant.
Like I also mentioned, it's also very difficult to balance.
I disagree, the full system I said was when you hit your unit cap those abilities switch from summoning to active abilities for that type of summon. Even with min-maxing a "best combination" there will be better combinations depending on the situation, with the added layer of maybe certain active abilities would be more useful in certain scenarios too.
I think that is where this style of play for summoners could really shine at high skill levels. Knowing which summons to use when and applying proper counter play as opposed to just mathing some optimal one size fits all load out.
Many of the things you suggested such as permanent summons, multiple summons (you will be able to summon 1-3 permanent depending on build), and useful abilities on summons among other suggestions are already set. I think you should read the known information on summoners:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Summoner
and then you should probably rewrite your post to focus on aspects that are not already going in the game.
Also, the expected # of skills are:
"The maximum number of skills a player can have on their action bar will be around 15-20"
Each archetype will have roughly 35-40 skills to choose from on average."
More info at: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Skills
In regards to summoner, that info on the wiki has been there for years, and as such is not final. With each class showcase, they make a forum post asking for feedback on that class, so things are not yet final.
In regards to number of skills, that info is based on something Steven Shariff said in one of the development updates, and he also stated when he said that, that it is also not final.
The game is still a while away from finalised so everything can still be changed.
This is overly complicated, and once again, very difficult to balance. Balancing requires knowing exactly how much power a class has when optimised, and there are already numerous variations for each class depending on which secondary archetype is chosen, so to balance the summoner based on both the secondary archetype *and* having large variation of possible summon combinations will require a huge amount of work that is just not practical. Your suggestion is very ambitious, and I doubt they would ever implement something like this.
My understanding is that it hasn’t been decided yet because the other systems that will be used by the summoner have not been completed.
I never said that would be easy to do, I said it would be cool, fun, and a new way for a pet class to work. As for balancing you're right, this game is going to be a nightmare to even try and balance. Luckily they have said they don't intend to do balancing on a 1v1 basis, so it wouldn't be that much of a problem.
I also said that playing the class that way would be for high skill cap players not everyone. I'm sure there will always be players who will be a necromancer and just say I want max zombies, or a spellmancer that has determined fire elementals hurt the most and just spam them.
It would be nice to have that kind of depth for every class, but the summoner is unique compared to the rest and I feel like it could benefit from the extra work being out in to it. I'm hoping the summons are not as passive game play as a Diablo 4 necromancer, or like FFXIV where you're just a mage with extra steps.
I agree. At first I was worried they were going to miss the mark just like everyone else seems to, but the last two showcases have given me hope that they will do the summoner right. I was disappointed it wasn’t going to be in at the start of A2 but now that just gives me more hope that they won’t just cram it in.
I hope that summoner stays on theme for its abilities. I haven’t gone back and looked at the mage showcase but we haven’t seen that meteor drop spell in a bit. I wouldn’t be that upset if we ended up getting it since it was summoning that meteor. I could see something similar with castigate, and the tanks wall that we haven’t seen in a while. Either way I hope our skills from ourselves are actually the result of summoning something for the duration of that skill.
If we get a HoT I want to actually summon a little temporal energy or fae that follows around the target healing it for the duration.
If we get some melee skills I hope we summon a weapon visually when we perform it. This could be something cool for the melee vs range skill mechanics we saw on cleric. In melee range we summon the weapon and strike with it instantly, but at range we summon weapons and shoot them at the target.
A DoT would hopefully be caused by us summoning a swarm of bees or something else.
Of course all the staple pet interaction stuff such as healing your pet, redirecting damage to/from your pet, sacrificing pets life to benefit yourself or vice versa.
I’m feeling rather positive about what the summoner will end up being though. I feel like they’ve done a really good job at creating a tangible class fantasy for the others so far.
The Age of Conan Necromancer skill/feat trees are very interesting to study.
Along with the eight pet points already assigned to the Necromancer, the Necromancer could add up to three more pet points, at the cost of stacking debuffs on the Necromancer.
In addition, due to the Necromancer being also the Ice Mage in Age of Conan, the player could place a stacking buff on their Necromancer. Each buff made the Necromancer's own personal spells more powerful at the cost of a single pet point per spell power buff.
This allowed for several class combinations for player Necromancers.
And there were ways for Necromancers to summon other temporary pets depending what spells were used with what skills/feats were speced into.
Also, the Necromancer could add more pet points, with the debuff, to use those pet points to stack more spell damage buffs for the Necromancer to turn the Necromancer into a glass cannon mage.
I hope Intrepid look at the Age of Conan Necromancer for inspiration and added a similar pet point system for the Ashes of Creation Summoner.
Yes kind of like that, but also mix it with GW2 where if you have that summons out already and are at you limit the you get unique active abilities. If you have multiple of the same summon you could have multiple charges of that ability.
I know it sounds like a lot, but there is nothing stopping any kind of overlap on abilities. Every flavor of necromancer could have one pet that can cause a hard CC of some kind for example.
That being said. I am not for a limited tool bar selection. I believe ability options should be flexible on the fly.
My goal isn't so much for the limited action bar, It's just to make buttons multi function. I like the idea of having those active abilities locked behind getting your minion count up to a critical mass. I really like what Diablo 4 did with the summon skeleton, it is way cleaner than D2 and is easier to use.