Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Summons as Mounts
HumblePuffin
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I was doing my daily day dreaming about how cool I hope the summoner will be. Thinking about how I hope you can interact with your summons, and about how I hope that they feel natural and apart of the world with you as opposed to a mindless NPC following you around, teleporting to you every time you jump on to a rock that it can’t find pathing for.
This got me thinking of one step more to go in my dream summoner list. Rideable summons. And I’m not talking about a creature I specifically summon to ride, but rather any summon you would use in every day combat, that is reasonably appropriate for you to ride.
(Glimmering Geode as a regular mount really opens up the possibilities here).
I think this would not only add to that experience of playing the game with your summoner partner, but could also add some unique combat to really set the summoner apart.
Two things the wiki states are that mounts will have abilities, and the summoner will essentially be playing through their summon. So what if we go even further with this and when the summoner is riding their summon they can use any of those abilities that are directly done through their summon.
I certainly assume there will be summoner abilities that are not directly through their summon, and all of these can be turned off while mounted just like everyone else, but if I’m sending us down the slippery slope of being able to ride our combat summons I might as well go all the way.
Tbh I was surprised I wasn’t able to find anything directly in the wiki that confirmed, denied, or even said “being discussed” about this.
This got me thinking of one step more to go in my dream summoner list. Rideable summons. And I’m not talking about a creature I specifically summon to ride, but rather any summon you would use in every day combat, that is reasonably appropriate for you to ride.
(Glimmering Geode as a regular mount really opens up the possibilities here).
I think this would not only add to that experience of playing the game with your summoner partner, but could also add some unique combat to really set the summoner apart.
Two things the wiki states are that mounts will have abilities, and the summoner will essentially be playing through their summon. So what if we go even further with this and when the summoner is riding their summon they can use any of those abilities that are directly done through their summon.
I certainly assume there will be summoner abilities that are not directly through their summon, and all of these can be turned off while mounted just like everyone else, but if I’m sending us down the slippery slope of being able to ride our combat summons I might as well go all the way.
Tbh I was surprised I wasn’t able to find anything directly in the wiki that confirmed, denied, or even said “being discussed” about this.
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Also, a summoner that can summon people to a location for a party or raid.
I don’t know why I had not considered it before. Could make a really interesting playstyle for the summoner.
I don’t know how keen I am on the idea of summoning people just because of how limited fast travel is in this game.
If it was to be included though I would vote for it to be something you had to invest a lot of skill points in to receive it.
This will just break the whole point of "travel time means something in Ashes".
There's the family TP stuff, but I feel like it'll get removed sooner rather than later, for this exact reason.
I am saying it would be cool if summons, that make sense to, could act like mounts.
As funny as it may be, I’m not talking about riding a skeleton around the world, rather animals or other seemingly rideable creatures we could summon.
The Devs dont want that. It's gamebreaking.
There may be some summoning between family members on high cooldown.
All players can summon mounts from an item in their backpack. Why would a Summoner want to give up a combat pet to have something to ride? Or worse put skill points into having a mount-summon just so it would be as good as other mounts?
I am not asking a summoner to give something up. I am asking for them to be able to use the thing they already summon as a mount as well within reason.
You would not be wasting skills points to make them as good as other mounts. I am asking them to use the same abilities you would already be able to use through them as the summoner.
Example being if my summon has a swipe claw attack I can normally tell it to use, allow me to use that swipe claw attack in a mounted state as well, just like I would be able to use any other mounts abilities.
From a summoners perspective this feels more seamless. I have a reasonably size animal summon. I can ride other things that look rather similar to this, so let me just ride this. Why do I need to summon an entirely different mount, when my summon is already basically all of the same things as a mount?
I kinda like that, all classes are suposed to have some utility. That could be a high lvl utility skill.
Yeah that’s why I kinda was like “eh maybe” about it.
Maybe there’s a world that it’s balanced as something tucked away so far down the summoners journey that it won’t be broken, but the others are right, with the current amount of limited fast travel in the game it’s probably broken.
Reaaaaaaally just want my rideable summon here.
Man me too. But there’s definitely a difference between a whole new set of mechanics and animations, and flipping the switch that says I can ride my class summoned thing that is almost identical to some other rideable creature in the game that share extremely similar if not exactly the same base model and rigging points.
@NiKr I don't think it'll be removed, rather just some high 12 or 24 hour cooldown on it, with a similarly high cooldown on inviting people to the family to prevent people from using it to sell processing bench access constantly.
I would sure like to see the teleport removed though.
Then one should shapeshift into a horse...
For myself, the games I have played with a “pet class”, said “pet class” always has crap movement abilities. Some are more turrety of a casting style, some have dots and you just run around like a mad man until everything dies, some keep super shitty telegraphed portals that you need to set up and know where you will need them before the battle even starts. We don’t get blinks, or speed ups, or leaps.
But worry no more!
Need to reposition? Meet up with your summon, mount up and close that distance! Make that space! Fear not about make sure you’re following ABC, because mounts in ashes have abilities and so does your rideable summon! You’ll always be casting while actually being able to effectively maneuver fights. Tired of summons not pathing correctly in dungeons and pulling a whole bunch of mobs you didn’t mean to? Tired of always need to unsummon and resummon? Worry no more! Just hop on to your rideable summon in this tight spaces and your summon goes right where you want it to! All of this and more can be yours if intrepid just flips that little switch and lets us have it rideable summons!
But in the classic Steven fashion we have this nugget of gold (from 2020)
So once again Steven is adding contradictory designs into his game and will then have to wiggle himself out of those contradictions.
That’s all though. Rideable summons make sense, would be great summoner flavor, and can potentially work as a solution to summoners tending to have poor movement skills.
That's the thing. It'd be removing the market of Animal Husbandry for an eighth of the playerbase.
So, why stop at Mounts? Summon yourself some Armour, or a Weapon! Summon a Ship. Everyone can be a Summoner and we can do away with the Artisan Skills entirely!
For a single-player game, it sounds fine. But, in a multiplayer game with an active economy, I just don't see it working.
Seems like a very powerful utility and other archetypes would either need something equally cool/useful or there would need to be some drawback to the summoner with which to purchase such an advantage. I prefer giving every class something cool.
There are definitely economic ramifications and ultimately I don't think Intrepid would implement this despite it being a cool idea. Wouldn't mind being proved wrong so long as previously mentioned concerns were addressed.
I personally do not believe it would harm animal husbandry. I would assume the number of potential (rideable) summons is far less than the number and combination of mounts we will have through animal husbandry.
Plus because of husbandry/taming there would be so many traversal options you’d be losing out on. A summon used as a mount may be a better option in combat scenarios or active questing/grinding.
It will never match an animal husbandry mount at longer distance travel, traveling by water, carrying goods, exploring mountainous terrain (double jump mounts), or when you need something really fast to get away from some enemies.
I believe that saying it would remove that artisan class for 1/8 of the player base(archetypes) is rather harsh. I think that the concern has value but don’t believe it would, or ever wanted it to replace the mounts in its entirety.
I’ll just keeeeep dreaming over here
Scenario: sailing a ship and having like sharks or something as escorts!
No, a complete WALL between adventure class and Artisan skills needs to be maintained. Breaching that wall is simply a bad idea period.
The tamer can mount her summon, yet it is nowhere near as effective as a mount (at least not a upgraded one) - it does however offer some really cool flavor. I used it a lot despite it being worse just because it felt awesome.
I see no harm in summoners getting a summon that is on the equal level of T1 mounts (aka, the horse we all get at level 2 anyways). It sounds reasonable, and like a perfect utility fit for the summoner.
And if Intrepid want, they can always add talents to make the mount summon somewhat more reliable. Want a better summon mount? Sure, but you'll be sacrificing other aspects that could serve you in combat. I am very certain most summoners would prefer more combat-oriented talents in general.