Family Summons Sucks (And How to Fix The System)

Argument Against Family Summons in Ashes of Creation

Undermining Travel Significance:

The introduction of the family summons system poses a risk of undermining the significance of travel within the game.
Fast travel systems, if too efficient, have the potential to make other means of travel less appealing. This could diminish the sense of adventure, exploration, and danger that is integral to a vibrant open-world gaming experience.

Uniformity in Travel Choices:

The dominance of family summons as the go-to method for fast travel may lead to uniformity in players' travel choices. If family summons becomes the most efficient and widely adopted means of travel, it could homogenize the player experience, limiting the diversity of travel options and strategies players might employ.

Impact on PvP Dynamics:

Family summons may have a negative impact on player-versus-player (PvP) dynamics. PvP scenarios often rely on strategic movement and positioning. If family summons provides a quick and easy repositioning tool, it could reduce the importance of strategic planning and alter the dynamics of PvP encounters.

Contradiction to Meaningful Travel Commitment:

The concept of family summons contradicts the initial commitment to meaningful travel experiences as described during the Kickstarter campaign. If the developers emphasized the importance of travel in creating a rich and immersive game world during the Kickstarter, the inclusion of an easily accessible fast travel system might be seen as deviating from that commitment.

Overall, there is very little good to be gotten from "Family Summons". Sure, it could be balanced in a way that it's not very abusable. Sure, it could be made weaker if people disliked it. But at the end of the day, it's a bad concept. It should be thrown into the dumpster.

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Comments

GrappLr

The big issue, as someone stated above me, is that family summons forces an unfun meta.

Family summons, is literally the best, fastest, most efficient, and safest way to travel. There is no argument here.

Now, what makes it bad? Your family is not in the places you want it to be... Or is it?

Basically, people that want to play optimally, will also have to play family summons optimally, and playing family summons optimally is not fun.

1. Guilds will optimize for it, which makes lots of things less fun.

2. P2W crowd will optimize for it (having 9 alt accounts), which is expensive (and not fun for those that can't afford it).

Look, there are MANY ways to nerf if, to make it less abusable, to make it less p2w, etc. etc. You could have it on a 48 hour cooldown for example (for GODS SAKE, it's at 30minutes atm... wtf?). You could make it so that you need at least 5 family members together, to summon the 6th, 7th, and 8th (meaning 1 person can't summon everyone). You could make it so that *insert nerf here*.

My big point is, why? Why go through all this trouble, for a system that most people feel is a bad system. Simply remove it. Find something else.

And if they decide to have it anyway, might as well add fast travel to game that is more efficient than family summons. Let summoners be able to summon anyone. Let mages be able to open portals and teleport. Just copy the WoW system at this point.

Xuri

GrappLr wrote: »

You could have it on a 48 hour cooldown for example (for GODS SAKE, it's at 30minutes atm... wtf?).

Cooldown doesn't matter if all it takes is a swipe of your credit card.

Enigmatic Sage

Family summon not good in my opinion. Obvious as to why.

Depraved

Xuri wrote: »

GrappLr wrote: »

You could have it on a 48 hour cooldown for example (for GODS SAKE, it's at 30minutes atm... wtf?).

Cooldown doesn't matter if all it takes is a swipe of your credit card.

you cant have infinite accounts/characters in your family. at some point they might all be on cooldown...

GrappLr wrote: »

The big issue, as someone stated above me, is that family summons forces an unfun meta.

Family summons, is literally the best, fastest, most efficient, and safest way to travel. There is no argument here.

Now, what makes it bad? Your family is not in the places you want it to be... Or is it?

Basically, people that want to play optimally, will also have to play family summons optimally, and playing family summons optimally is not fun.

1. Guilds will optimize for it, which makes lots of things less fun.

2. P2W crowd will optimize for it (having 9 alt accounts), which is expensive (and not fun for those that can't afford it).

Look, there are MANY ways to nerf if, to make it less abusable, to make it less p2w, etc. etc. You could have it on a 48 hour cooldown for example (for GODS SAKE, it's at 30minutes atm... wtf?). You could make it so that you need at least 5 family members together, to summon the 6th, 7th, and 8th (meaning 1 person can't summon everyone). You could make it so that *insert nerf here*.

My big point is, why? Why go through all this trouble, for a system that most people feel is a bad system. Simply remove it. Find something else.

And if they decide to have it anyway, might as well add fast travel to game that is more efficient than family summons. Let summoners be able to summon anyone. Let mages be able to open portals and teleport. Just copy the WoW system at this point.

you arent seeing the positives and what the system is intended for

also, why is optimizing not fun? i have fun optimizing stuff. lots of people do too. that subjective. and most guilds wont care as most are casuals. most people will also not pay for multiple accounts.

on top of that, you are forgetting that there are other benefits for being part of a family, for example, access to freeholds.

so you pay for your 9 accounts, good job, but your friends / guild have a freehold and u dont even have access to it because the only people in your family is you.

you could always pay for a 10th account and join their family, but are they really gonna take alts when they could take someone else who can contribute? and if you join with your main account, your other 8 accounts to summon yourself are pointless.

Arya_Yeshe

Family summons will just force people into this and will become one of those you things you gotta heave otherwise the game will become a painful experience. This shouldn't exist.

KashQuests

You definitely have some great points and I understand your stance. As for me, however, I'd like to gauge how this system will actually work in Alpha 2 before I jump on one side of the fence or the other. Although convenience is nice, I do like the old school feel. I do like the thought of needing to get to an area, but having to make the jaunt to do it. I'm completely fine with having an entire play session be traveling to a destination and stopping to smell the roses along the way. It adds realism to my gameplay. At the same time, having a bit of convenience with a system such as family travel will most likely keep a wider audience in the game. Not everyone is like me and ok with long travel times. I don't know, for me, jury's still out on this one. Thanks for bringing this up though, I love seeing other perspectives on these very important systems!

Depraved

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Family summons will just force people into this and will become one of those you things you gotta heave otherwise the game will become a painful experience. This shouldn't exist.

so assuming the game doesnt change at all, and u remove family summons, then will the game be a painful experience?

Caww

who doesn't think there will be some fast travel shrines in some future update once the game is released and people complain enough about how much game time gets wasted just traveling to do things, over the same routes, over and over and over.....

daveywavey

Depraved wrote: »

on top of that, you are forgetting that there are other benefits for being part of a family, for example, access to freeholds.

That's another thing I don't like. If I'm in a guild of 200 players, why would I only let 7 other players use my freehold? I'm in ESO at the moment in a guild of 400, and I happily let any of them use my crafting facilities. I don't only play with the same 7 players every day.

Enigmatic Sage

Caww wrote: »

who doesn't think there will be some fast travel shrines in some future update once the game is released and people complain enough about how much game time gets wasted just traveling to do things, over the same routes, over and over and over.....

lol
yup

It's definitely plausible considering how many people already complain about having to fly 30 seconds to a dungeon in other games considering they just took portals to travel across several expansions with a short loading screen too.

gamers these days...

Depraved

daveywavey wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

on top of that, you are forgetting that there are other benefits for being part of a family, for example, access to freeholds.

That's another thing I don't like. If I'm in a guild of 200 players, why would I only let 7 other players use my freehold? I'm in ESO at the moment in a guild of 400, and I happily let any of them use my crafting facilities. I don't only play with the same 7 players every day.

well, constant parties benefit from this. remember that they dont want items being introduced too quickly. processing is basically the bottleneck and its done on purpose. they have their reasons. if you could let anyone use ur freehold, the system is pointless then. might as well just let everyone have a fh and max all artisan professions.

Undead Canuck

I wonder if it would help to only let people be part of a family or a guild, not both.
Since it seems they are trying to help casuals, this means guilds cannot take advantage of this system.
This would also help mitigate the abuse of the family system to teleport many people quickly.

daveywavey

Depraved wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

on top of that, you are forgetting that there are other benefits for being part of a family, for example, access to freeholds.

That's another thing I don't like. If I'm in a guild of 200 players, why would I only let 7 other players use my freehold? I'm in ESO at the moment in a guild of 400, and I happily let any of them use my crafting facilities. I don't only play with the same 7 players every day.

well, constant parties benefit from this. remember that they dont want items being introduced too quickly. processing is basically the bottleneck and its done on purpose. they have their reasons. if you could let anyone use ur freehold, the system is pointless then. might as well just let everyone have a fh and max all artisan professions.

But again, if I've put the time, effort, and resources into building up my freehold, why shouldn't I be able to hire it out to others outside my family group? I shouldn't have to keep playing jack-in-the-box with my family group just to hire it out to other players. Defeats the point of having the family group, then.

Depraved

daveywavey wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

on top of that, you are forgetting that there are other benefits for being part of a family, for example, access to freeholds.

That's another thing I don't like. If I'm in a guild of 200 players, why would I only let 7 other players use my freehold? I'm in ESO at the moment in a guild of 400, and I happily let any of them use my crafting facilities. I don't only play with the same 7 players every day.

well, constant parties benefit from this. remember that they dont want items being introduced too quickly. processing is basically the bottleneck and its done on purpose. they have their reasons. if you could let anyone use ur freehold, the system is pointless then. might as well just let everyone have a fh and max all artisan professions.

But again, if I've put the time, effort, and resources into building up my freehold, why shouldn't I be able to hire it out to others outside my family group? I shouldn't have to keep playing jack-in-the-box with my family group just to hire it out to other players. Defeats the point of having the family group, then.

can you go into a factory and ask them to let you make your own phone?

also, intrepid has their reasons for not allowing it. they dont want mats added too fast to the game. plus if u let others use it, now u cant use it because of the queue and u gonna be using it so others cant really use it.

daveywavey

Depraved wrote: »

can you go into a factory and ask them to let you make your own phone?

also, intrepid has their reasons for not allowing it. they dont want mats added too fast to the game. plus if u let others use it, now u cant use it because of the queue and u gonna be using it so others cant really use it.

I bet if I paid them enough, they'd let me do pretty much whatever I wanted.

Depraved

daveywavey wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

can you go into a factory and ask them to let you make your own phone?

also, intrepid has their reasons for not allowing it. they dont want mats added too fast to the game. plus if u let others use it, now u cant use it because of the queue and u gonna be using it so others cant really use it.

I bet if I paid them enough, they'd let me do pretty much whatever I wanted.

no lol

Raven016

Undead Canuck wrote: »

I wonder if it would help to only let people be part of a family or a guild, not both.
Since it seems they are trying to help casuals, this means guilds cannot take advantage of this system.
This would also help mitigate the abuse of the family system to teleport many people quickly.

@Undead Canuck that is what I asked/suggested too but I feel that most on the forum either know or just assume that family and guild will overlap.
But then I realized that if family members cannot be part of a guild, if you just want to move some epic gear from a continent to the other, for a siege, you can have alts.
Items in this game are not character or account bound so you can give the items to somebody not in the guild and receive them back on the other side. You can save time and resources because if you want to travel and you are killed, the gear takes durability loss and repair might be costly for the epic gear.

Chocometeor

Familiy Summon is a System that is actually game breaking in some ways.
Ashes talks about immersion and risk v reward traveling through choke points they showed us.
The Caravan System not even to mention.

You are intended to travel through the lands and a 30min (atm) Familiy Summon will just break all of that.
You can just wait in the City until your mates have the wanted position and then quickly teleport to them. thats just stupid sorry.

Atleast make it a HUGE cooldown or something like 24h

GrappLr

To sum up what I want to say:

Family summon sucks if it is the most efficient, safest way to travel. It sucks even more if this can be abused via P2W (Using alt accounts).

Why does this suck? Because everyone who wants to be efficient, will have to play this "family summon" optimization game. It's a boring thing to optimize around.

Family summons is absolutely fine in a game where fast travel is easily accessible (because then it's just 1 more form of travel). This is not the case with AoC.

TL:DR: It sucks. It would stop sucking if AoC had lots of other fast travel methods (Currently not the plan).

GrappLr

I made a thread about how Family Summons sucks. Can be found here: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/57079/family-summons-sucks#latest

But what's better than bashing on a system that's not out yet (and that I'm sure they'll keep in the game, to at least test it) is giving Intrepid constructive ideas on how to make it viable within their game.

I was talking to Fuppo on the Discord, and here's a cool idea that we came up with (he inspired the idea, this is my take on how I'd personally implement it):

Family summon stone. 1 per family. Anyone in the family can carry this stone. It can be placed on the ground, and it can be used to summon other family members. This stone can only be placed once, and once it has been used, a new one has to be gotten from one's home node. After being placed, the stone will despawn after a certain period of time (say, 10 minutes). To get another stone, have to go to the home node and get one there.

Why is this a good idea:

1. It can't be abused for teleporting back and forth. There is only one stone, which means 1 way teleporting. You can't then teleport back to where you came from. And if you want to teleport somewhere far away, that means someone in your family took the time to pick up the stone, walk all the way over there, and place it.

2. It can't be used unfairly to spread out as a family, search all over the world, find a POI, then all teleport to the person who found said POI.

3. Can't be used effectively to cheese PVP. Only 1 stone per family at a time. Similarly to point #2, not everyone is carrying it, so only the person that carries the stone can summon towards themselves.

4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, it still does exactly what Steven wants it to do. Oh, we want to gather to play with each other at 6PM with our friends? No problem, one person in the family picks up a stone, and carries it around. The time comes that everyone's online, they all teleport to the stone carrier. Problem solved.

This would solve almost every problem I have with the current system (a high abusable system). If you're curious as to why the current system is destined to fail and suck, read the thread in the link mention in the first sentence of this one.

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