Is the family summoning system needed?

After hearing Steven's reasoning for the family summoning system during the Ashes Pathfinder podcast, I've had a bit of time to think about it and I think that no matter what measures you put in place, it will always be open to abuse. With that in mind, I have 2 questions for everyone:

1. Do you think Steven's concern of players with small amounts of time not being able to play with each other due to lack of fast travel is valid (i.e. is the family summoning system needed)?

2. Assuming Steven's concerns are valid, do you think the benefits of the family summoning system outweigh the exploitation that can occur?

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Noaani

Makosi wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Makosi wrote: »

It's totally needed, how can you even suggest is not needed? Do you not have friends?

I have friends, they wait for me, and I wait for them.

If yours don't, I would suggest that what you have is something other than friends.

Aha and then you wait like a dork for 30min or so instead of just playing.

No, we find something else to do for 30 minutes, because waiting 30 minutes for a friend is nothing.

Makosi

Still a dork, you summon your friend and go hunt together. If every time you want to play, you have to wait for your friends then might as well not log on and go play something else together. I really hope game devs will ignore this thread and leave the summon a family member in place, albeit with more restrictions.

Nagash

I don't have an opinion really I can see the good and the bad but we can work out the bad in testing

Noaani

Makosi wrote: »

Still a dork, you summon your friend and go hunt together. If every time you want to play, you have to wait for your friends then might as well not log on and go play something else together. I really hope game devs will ignore this thread and leave the summon a family member in place, albeit with more restrictions.

There is always some gathering, crafting, looking at the market, organizing things in a freehold or even just killing mobs for certs that can be done.

Do all that mundane stuff while you're waiting for your friends, then when they are all ready to go, you go.

As far as I am concerned, that is what friends do.

Nielsen

this system can be exploited so many ways, and if they want to distance matters, that a really really bad way to dont support it

Makosi

noaani wrote: »

Makosi wrote: »

Still a dork, you summon your friend and go hunt together. If every time you want to play, you have to wait for your friends then might as well not log on and go play something else together. I really hope game devs will ignore this thread and leave the summon a family member in place, albeit with more restrictions.

There is always some gathering, crafting, looking at the market, organizing things in a freehold or even just killing mobs for certs that can be done.

Do all that mundane stuff while you're waiting for your friends, then when they are all ready to go, you go.

As far as I am concerned, that is what friends do.

That's exactly what im saying if every time when you login you need to do something mundane, boring, annoying, then are you really looking forward to login in? On normal working day I don't have that much time to play and if i need to spend some portion of that time for this then will I really want to play AOC. I am sure im not alone in this....

Krojak

*shrugs*

Have some faith that the developers will address any inbalance or abuse issues regarding family teleport over the course of Alpha and Beta.

Nagash

krojak wrote: »

*shrugs*

Have some faith that the developers will address any inbalance or abuse issues regarding family teleport over the course of Alpha and Beta.

Hello Mr krojak ^^

Noaani

Makosi wrote: »

That's exactly what im saying if every time when you login you need to do something mundane, boring, annoying, then are you really looking forward to login in?

Those things need to be done anyway, so why not do them while I am waiting for a friend, so that when all my friends are online we can all go off and do the fun parts together?

I mean, if you are waiting for a friend, you are probably not doing the most interesting content anyway - because you will want to wait for your friend to do it.

What difference does it make as to exactly which not that interesting thing you are doing?

Noaani

krojak wrote: »

*shrugs*

Have some faith that the developers will address any inbalance or abuse issues regarding family teleport over the course of Alpha and Beta.

As do I, but that faith in Intrepid leads me to assume they will get rid of this idea, as anything that could be useful along these lines will be exploited far more often than it will be used for it's intended purpose.

Makosi

noaani wrote: »

krojak wrote: »

*shrugs*

Have some faith that the developers will address any inbalance or abuse issues regarding family teleport over the course of Alpha and Beta.

As do I, but that faith in Intrepid leads me to assume they will get rid of this idea, as anything that could be useful along these lines will be exploited far more often than it will be used for it's intended purpose.

heh on contrary my faith in intrepid leads me to assume that they will ignore this whole thread and leave summon a family member idea. Time will tell

daxiongmao87

1. If there is no fast travel, not having some way to summon your friends will definitely hurt players who want to play with friends who only have a little bit of time to play. Without it you're forcing these players down two choices: Do not stray far from friends who are offline, (anchoring them to a specific area), or have even less time to play with them due to travel requirements. I can see this being a necessity for those players. I think the summoning system should exist but if possible, make it even more limited. Maybe with a longer cooldown.

2. As the system currently designed, perhaps not. Maybe they can think of a better implementation though. Maybe have the summon have a shared number of charges within the family, say you can only summon 2 people every x amount of hours. Sure, you can't summon your whole family, but you can definitely use it to summon the 2 that are farthest from the desired destination. And this would limit the potential of instantly gathering 64 people to only 24 (or 16 if you restrict the charges to 1).

I'm sure there are other options the team can explore

Just some thoughts

JamesSunderland

I think it should be a 12H cooldown trick for 8 members(Party size) and to have a 20-30 min PvP Debuff to it.
Or maybe just set the teleport to a specific "Family Hall" chosen by the family leader with some days cooldown to set a new one.

Songcaller

JamesSunderland wrote: »

I think it should be a 12H cooldown trick for 8 members(Party size) and to have a 20-30 min PvP Debuff to it.
Or maybe just set the teleport to a specific "Family Hall" chosen by the family leader with some days cooldown to set a new one.

I would refuse to be summoned at all if it equates to a PvP Debuff. I'm aware you can't be summoned unless you've stashed your certificates and materials in the first place, but, I would be unable to defend myself in a Combat Situation and seeing as Dungeons will be open world and contestable its simply not conducive to being given a PvP Debuff.

WMC51

JamesSunderland wrote: »

I think it should be a 12H cooldown trick for 8 members(Party size) and to have a 20-30 min PvP Debuff to it.
Or maybe just set the teleport to a specific "Family Hall" chosen by the family leader with some days cooldown to set a new one.

Family hall defeats the point of getting friends to you so you can play together.

B1uefalc0n

Wandering Mist wrote: »

After hearing Steven's reasoning for the family summoning system during the Ashes Pathfinder podcast, I've had a bit of time to think about it and I think that no matter what measures you put in place, it will always be open to abuse. With that in mind, I have 2 questions for everyone:

1. Do you think Steven's concern of players with small amounts of time not being able to play with each other due to lack of fast travel is valid (i.e. is the family summoning system needed)?

2. Assuming Steven's concerns are valid, do you think the benefits of the family summoning system outweigh the exploitation that can occur?

There are so many threads on this issue it seems to really be bugging people. The fact that Steven has done quite a bit more research on the topic of whether this is needed or not then all of us combined remains. So giving feedback on if something should be in the game isn't up for debate and will fall on deaf ears. Instead looking for ways to make the idea prosper might grab attention.

As I have written in many threads on this topic I agree that seeing 3 people out and about your group decides to attack and suddenly those 3 turn into 24 which is the worst possible outcome and least likely made possible by the family system is not optimal. No one wants that it's not fun gameplay I get it, you get, Steven gets it, everyone gets it. My solution to the problem is that you can only summon family members at points of interest. This would be dungeon entrances, within nodes, freeholds, world boss locations etc.. You could even place a cool summoning circle in the area for it This solution will take away the possibility of people using it to teleport family members to a very specific spot on the map where they can instantly jump into combat to prevent a gank or attack unexpecting players.

Felrora

I think a big cooldown on the family teleport would be the easiest solution to the problem.

You could also replace the family teleportation with some kind of "Hearthstone" like in WoW, which is unlocked once you have a certain level of housing.

Makinoji

I like the idea. Reminds me of Tera online, where you could summon your guild during a gvg and only during a gvg.

So maybe give the summon a huge CD. Make it achievable only after meeting a crazy amount of prerequisites. limit the distance from the leader, that way it'll plop a player close to the same region but not right on top of the group.

Personally I dont mind the idea, can help avoid gankers and trolls blocking choke points in towns or roads.

XiraelAcaron

From what I understood, the main reason why this game has much less Fast Travel than other games is to inhibit the Zerg. Since this family system does not really impact that much, I am Ok with it. Having a scientific Metropolis will impact that goal more than the family system.

I believe the heavy opposition to this is mostly due to the fact that the 'limited fast travel' was propagated early on by Intrepid without telling people why. And we got used to it. If this had not been a topic until now, everyone would simply accept that the Zerg is part of PvP gameplay and not raise an eyebrow on the family port system.

so: 1). yes and 2.) yes

Ryufu

Now that you mention it... It is a strange mechanic. I personally don't think it is needed and likely to be abused, but I can see the perspective of those who are for it. I think this mechanic is meant for a very small group of people, but will likely impact everyone..

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