Instead of family summon, do this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

Dygz wrote: »

Wise of you to concede early.

No, wise of him to not want to get in to a semantics argument with someone willing to literally argue the definition of semantics before they debate the point at hand.

Dygz wrote: »

That being said, with all the current restrictions on Family Summons, I don't understand the circumstances under which people will choose to use it.

That is because you are unable to imagine any playstyle other than your own.

Khronus

Dygz wrote: »

Wise of you to concede early.

Dygz wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

Corruption and PvP are an integral part of the game design, as is the concept of No Fast Travel and Meaningful Journey Times. Getting rid of Family Summon fits those values.

Except, No Fast Travel is not an integral part of the Ashes game design.
Limited fast travel is a core concept - Family Summons, as designed, fits the values of that core concept.

That being said, with all the current restrictions on Family Summons, I don't understand the circumstances under which people will choose to use it.

Wait what? No fast travel IS an integral part of the game design.

It's why Caravans and dropping your gathered resources on death are a big deal.

It's why only a science metropolis has access to it.

Dreoh wrote: »

It's why only a science metropolis has access to it.

Which means there is fast travel; but it is limited.
Precisely what I said.

Edit: Nevermind, no point in splitting hairs.

Scientific Metro with fast travel is more than 1% of the game. Gross exaggeration does not actually support your claim.
And Scientific Nodes are not the only means of fast travel - hence Family Summons.

Dygz wrote: »

Scientific Metro with fast travel is more than 1% of the game. Gross exaggeration does not actually support your claim.
And Scientific Nodes are not the only means of fast travel - hence Family Summons.

Do you actually think you're going to spend one cumulative hour out of every 100 at a scientific node teleporter?

In any form of gameplay?

The only scenario I would believe that is if you become a trader who specializes in going between scientific nodes, and that's only after you've played enough time to get to that point.

It's not about what one individual will do.
It's about what is available in the game.
I don't spend an hour on fast travel in WoW.
If that's how you're calculating fast travel, fast travel in WoW is about 1%, too.

Ashes of Creation has fast travel. Severely limited fast travel.
But, severely limited fast travel is not the same thing as no fast travel.
Family Summons have a lot of restrictions - which is in keeping with the Ashes value of very limited fast travel.

Dygz wrote: »

It's not about what one individual will do.
It's about what is available in the game.
I don't spend an hour on fast travel in WoW.
If that's how you're calculating fast travel, fast travel in WoW is about 1%, too.

Ashes of Creation has fast travel. Severely limited fast travel.
But, severely limited fast travel is not the same thing as no fast travel.
Family Summons have a lot of restrictions - which is in keeping with the Ashes value of very limited fast travel.

You're putting the cart before the horse.

@Dygz
Going back through your last few posts here, I agree with you that the concept of Ashes fast travel is that it be limited, not that there be none.

However, that limit was - until Steven blurted out his lack-of-a-plan for the family summons - was that fast travel was only ever from and to specific points in the games world, and those specific points are known to every player on the server.

What this means is that the fast travel associated with a scientific node is something players will work in to the strategy of any activity they plan on undertaking. If they are intercepting caravans from a node that is part of a scientific metropolis nodes ZoI, then they will attack that caravan as far away from any node as possible, to reduce the impact of people fast traveling to try and help.

On the other hand, the family summons has no restriction in terms of location - and this is the issue.

This means players can fast travel to basically any location in the open world they want - with enough planning (and guilds *will* plan these things out).

This means that a guild of 24 players can scan an area 8 times larger looking for targets, simply taking 1 member each from three families. As soon as any one of these groups finds a target, they can then summon in the full force of 24 players.

Even if a family can only summon one player in a reasonable amount of time, that still leaves that guild of 24 to be able to scan an area twice as large as it would otherwise, while still being able to bring down that full force of 24 players on any caravan - it just means they need to organize themselves in to 12 families rather than 3.

This is not something the caravan can plan against specifically, as there is no restriction as to where this fast travel can occure. This is the issue - this is the lack of restriction.

Even if there are restrictions in place as to what you can be carrying on you, how many people you can have in your family and how many people you can summon in a given period of time, the fact that the family summon is essentially unrestricted in terms of locations that you can *summon to* is a problem.

As long as this fact remains unchanged, the family summons will be abused. Pure and simple fact.

This is why Vhaeynes idea from earlier in this thread is the best I have seen for making the family summons viable.

Littlekenny21

From what I'm seeing, it seems like the biggest issue people have is a guild teleporting across the world to find a target to PvP.

Couldn't they just give a debuff that doesn't allow the players who were summoned or did the summoning to engage in PvP unless in self defence for a set amount of time?

There could also be monitoring put in place which checks if once summoned, the characters actually play together.

daveywavey

But, if it's all just about the "family" playing together, then teleporting them to the Family Home at the freehold is better. Reduces the likelihood of abusing the system.

Family Summons:
Long duration cast (30 seconds to a minute) with an approximate 30 minute cooldown that slowly summons each of your family members to your location (up to eight members).

Players cannot be summoned in the following cases:
While in combat, if they are corrupted, or if they are engaged in an event, such as node wars, guild wars, sieges, arenas or participation in the caravan system.
If they have mats, gatherables or certs in their inventory.
This will be tested in Alpha-2.

Dygz wrote: »

Family Summons:
Long duration cast (30 seconds to a minute) with an approximate 30 minute cooldown that slowly summons each of your family members to your location (up to eight members).

Players cannot be summoned in the following cases:
While in combat, if they are corrupted, or if they are engaged in an event, such as node wars, guild wars, sieges, arenas or participation in the caravan system.
If they have mats, gatherables or certs in their inventory.
This will be tested in Alpha-2.

I'm not sure what you are gaining by posting this, or what you think you are gaining.

Yes, we know the restrictions that are in place, and we know that there will be testing in alpha 2.

The thing is, as I have said to you many, many times, those restrictions do not hold back a guild of organized people from abusing the family summons, and that organization will not be in place in alpha 2 to be put to the test.

I really am curious, what exactly is it you think this post added to the discussion?

McMackMuck

To be fair, it saved me having to go look it up.
I trust Steven enough that if the family summons turns out to be abusable then it will be nerfed.

PenguinPaladin

Balance with having a major cast time, like 5 minutes, and both the summoner and the summon need to be casting it.

This way summoning to a hostile area will be dangerous. Being summoned from a hostile area will be dangerous. And itll persuade people to walk distances they think would be shorter than that cast time. Along with the other restrictions.

This is a soft limitation, its not that you cant summon to anywhere, its that the risk now equals the reward.