If the classes are perfectly balanced and chosen equally.
Summoners are about 12% of the player base.
In a fight of 100 vs 100. There would be about 16 summoners. With summons limited to 3 per summoner as they are right now, you are already looking at 50 extra mobs involved in a fight like that. So its actually 125 vs 125.
No one ever wants to address this... and the anser in always one aoe should wipe them then....
Ashes doesnt have an aoe damage limit, its strickly just how many targets fit in the circle. And so aoe sizes cant be all that massive because you would be able to hit say 50 targets with one attack all to easily.
To balance a horde with just aoe's would bloat aoe's potential so high that those two things would be the meta alone. Amount of summons vs nuke spells.
Perhaps limiting a hordes action? Maybe a quantity of summons cant attack at all, they function more as a mobile wall or something. Idk. I understand the want of a horde. I understand the summoner flavor. But the game needs to work well also. I would prioritize function.
Imagine a single summoner with a horde of weak pets. Eh, whatever. Is fine.
Now imagine a party of 8 summonere with 100+ mobs following them around.... now imagine a seige with 50 summoners involved with 600+ mobs.....
Like, for it to be in the game, is would have to become a novelty, thats just there for flavor, it couldnt be useful in combat or it will get out of hand very quickly.
This is a very good argument. The game is large scale PvP focused. The more entities that are involved, the larger a strain it puts on various things.
I'm sorry but saying that summoners having too many summons or being able to bring more bodies to the party makes it a strain so they shouldn't be able to is on the shelf next to
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
A cleric could learn different types of banish spells, one for undead and another for demonic, for example. The cleric could level them up so that they could banish more (and stronger) summons in battle. Though learning these spells, of course, would be at the cost of learning other healing or attack spells.
I'm sorry but saying that summoners having too many summons or being able to bring more bodies to the party makes it a strain so they shouldn't be able to is on the shelf next to
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
Entity lag has an effect on all aspects of combat. Combat designers have to design around how much lag a player may experience relative to how fast they need to react to do something. So while I don't agree with the argument, it's still a very valid argument.
That being said even if we do not increase the number of entities currently available you can have: A battle pet, 3 summons, a regular pet, and yourself. 6 entities. To me, that's not a mighty horde, but it is certainly up there. How big does a horde have to be to satisfy the necromancer in question?
I'm sorry but saying that summoners having too many summons or being able to bring more bodies to the party makes it a strain so they shouldn't be able to is on the shelf next to
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
Entity lag has an effect on all aspects of combat. Combat designers have to design around how much lag a player may experience relative to how fast they need to react to do something. So while I don't agree with the argument, it's still a very valid argument.
That being said even if we do not increase the number of entities currently available you can have: A battle pet, 3 summons, a regular pet, and yourself. 6 entities. To me, that's not a mighty horde, but it is certainly up there. How big does a horde have to be to satisfy the necromancer in question?
You also have your mount, that is suposed to become its own entity in later development. It shouldnt vanish when you dismount it should stay and help you fight
I'm sorry but saying that summoners having too many summons or being able to bring more bodies to the party makes it a strain so they shouldn't be able to is on the shelf next to
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
Define your mini horde? What do you want?
At the moment, 3 permanent summons, a battle pet, a mount, a cosmetic pet, and yourself.
And potentially skills in the shape of summons. Summon Phoenix to do a ranged fire pool as an example. Swarm of insects as a dot.
I'm sorry but saying that summoners having too many summons or being able to bring more bodies to the party makes it a strain so they shouldn't be able to is on the shelf next to
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
Define your mini horde? What do you want?
At the moment, 3 permanent summons, a battle pet, a mount, a cosmetic pet, and yourself.
And potentially skills in the shape of summons. Summon Phoenix to do a ranged fire pool as an example. Swarm of insects as a dot.
When does it become enough to be a mini horde?
Because again. It is one thing for a single player to summon some bodies.
What if a summoner only guild comes into town. 50+ players with 600+ mobs following them around, how do you @SirChancelot think a town will function with that going on?
Give me some concept of balance for this happening. Tell me why it should be okay
Summoner also being the one role that can somewhat "jack of all trades" this risk of a full party of summoners is higher for this class than any other
Isn't this why they do server stress tests?
Put 500 bears on screen at once?
And if 50 people all coordinated summoning maximum swarm of minions I would expect the town to get as chaotic as you would expect if 50 necromancers summoned a horde of skeletons... Where's the surprise here?
I just don't want them to half ass something because it's too difficult, which I don't see them doing... But still.
Isn't this why they do server stress tests?
Put 500 bears on screen at once?
And if 50 people all coordinated summoning maximum swarm of minions I would expect the town to get as chaotic as you would expect if 50 necromancers summoned a horde of skeletons... Where's the surprise here?
I just don't want them to half ass something because it's too difficult, which I don't see them doing... But still.
The problem is at a larger scale than you seem to think though, because we are specifically talking about ADDING potential entities to the already existing system. I definitely agree with you that 'this is what stress tests are for', and personally believe they will achieve very robust network architecture that will stave off some of the problem. That does not, however, make the concern invalid.
For example, full party of necromancers, who are around for siege summons is 48 entities. Even if we reduce the pets and mounts out of the equation that's still 40-56 entities for one party doing PvE depending on the enemy population. Probably tolerable in most situations. But sieges are a whole other beast.
There is going to be very high population caps for sieges, however, and the numbers start scaling quite a lot. 100 necromancers? 400 entities for one team, being generous assuming it's a 100 man siege and again ignoring pets (you can't ignore mounts in a siege unfortunately but it's a lot more volatile so let's exclude them.)
That's not even accounting for the enemy side. Intrepid is aiming for at LEAST 200 v 200 as a design goal. Being even more generous assuming none of the enemy are summoners or have battle pets and only half of one team is necromancers that's 700 entities. And again that's give or take another possible 200's worth of mounts.
Can I win a siege by gathering all the necromancers to lag the server during the siege window? Possibly. It depends how much combat is designed around certain high damage/cc moves being reactable and how beefy the network architecture is. But if lag matters, you have now incentivized this being a strategy and it therefore NEEDS to be a factor in design.
Either way, the more entities you add the less people you need to cause lag and the wilder the numbers become. Just adding 'three skeletons' like was suggested in the opening post isn't adding 'just two more entities'. It's adding two per person. In a 200 vs 200 siege that is, again being super generous like I was above, another 400 entities...
But wait it's actually 1200 because you can have 3 summons of 3 skelies. So that puts us at a very generous hypothetical 1900 entities+200 mounts. You have to plan your network infrastructure and combat design around this which demand trade offs no matter how genius their network engineers are. Do you see the possible technical issues and why it's a valid concern others may want addressed? We haven't even brought up siege engines, projectiles, destructible environments, or loot drops that could complicate this.
Even if we limited it down to just one group of 3 skelies that's still an extra 200-400 entities you have to worry about on top of what is already going to be necessary to account for to prevent 'The Necro Zerg' ever becoming a reality.
The true counter argument is ofc 'make those three entities just one entity' which is a valid approach. But it is debatable if that would achieve the 'horde' feeling if you knew deep down that that one entity of three skelies wasn't actually real and didn't have individual hit boxes (which as far as I understand is part of the appeal of a horde.) However, it is a far more acceptable compromise in my eyes.
Isn't this why they do server stress tests?
Put 500 bears on screen at once?
And if 50 people all coordinated summoning maximum swarm of minions I would expect the town to get as chaotic as you would expect if 50 necromancers summoned a horde of skeletons... Where's the surprise here?
I just don't want them to half ass something because it's too difficult, which I don't see them doing... But still.
I too think if they can only half ass something the game would be better off without it... thats why summoner existing is a bit of a pain, because to do hordes right messes up a lot of systems in an actual MMO.
The route i would take for summoners to acquire more minions would be a gear trait. Gear with a permanent pet tied to it. So in trade off of better stats, you could have more summons. And it wouldnt be every single summoner walking around with 30 mobs with them
But as everyone can equip anything this also means non-summoners could get additional pets too, and everyone having a +1 on top of everything else can get out of hand too....
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited July 2022
We will test it and see.
I think Necromancers will not be Summoning Zombie or Skeleton Hordes.
Brood Wardens might Summon a horde of insects, I suppose. I expect whatever kind of hordes a Summoner can Summon, the indviduals will be small in size.
Isn't this why they do server stress tests?
Put 500 bears on screen at once?
And if 50 people all coordinated summoning maximum swarm of minions I would expect the town to get as chaotic as you would expect if 50 necromancers summoned a horde of skeletons... Where's the surprise here?
I just don't want them to half ass something because it's too difficult, which I don't see them doing... But still.
You are also just focusing on if it runs well...
Think about greifing. There is body collision. I cant walk through your swarm of random mobs. You are still green even tho your mobs are blocking my way. I cant kill you without being punished...... i cant attack your mobs without going purple. You existing puts me at a disadvantage even when we are not fighting.
honestly 3 permanent summons is more than to be expected of that class compaired to other MMOs as well i believe...
I'm sorry but saying that summoners having too many summons or being able to bring more bodies to the party makes it a strain so they shouldn't be able to is on the shelf next to
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
Define your mini horde? What do you want?
At the moment, 3 permanent summons, a battle pet, a mount, a cosmetic pet, and yourself.
And potentially skills in the shape of summons. Summon Phoenix to do a ranged fire pool as an example. Swarm of insects as a dot.
When does it become enough to be a mini horde?
I said at the beginning of the thread how I would love for the summoner to work, I'd be cool with 5-10. Yes if they go full swarm the minions should be weaker than one big minion. Yes some classes should struggle against a swarm summoner, while some classes are better against it. That makes sense logically too.
This whole conversation is hypothetical though, we have extremely limited info on the summoner.
I'm sorry but saying that summoners having too many summons or being able to bring more bodies to the party makes it a strain so they shouldn't be able to is on the shelf next to
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
Define your mini horde? What do you want?
At the moment, 3 permanent summons, a battle pet, a mount, a cosmetic pet, and yourself.
And potentially skills in the shape of summons. Summon Phoenix to do a ranged fire pool as an example. Swarm of insects as a dot.
When does it become enough to be a mini horde?
I said at the beginning of the thread how I would love for the summoner to work, I'd be cool with 5-10. Yes if they go full swarm the minions should be weaker than one big minion. Yes some classes should struggle against a swarm summoner, while some classes are better against it. That makes sense logically too.
This whole conversation is hypothetical though, we have extremely limited info on the summoner.
I think 3 permanent, and a few temporary summons covers your 5-10.
If you can have 3 permanent summons, and a skill that summons 5 undead for 45 seconds, or that type of thing. I dont have a problem with it.
Turning 3 permanent summons into 9 permanent summons is by far too much tho
I don't know about you but in my eyes necromancers have always been the big bad with a TON of weaker minions instead of 1-3 powerful minions. I'm really hoping that the evil side of necros will be the horde masters that they truly should be! Maybe making it as simple as "You can summon 3 weak skeletons to fight for 1 summon slot to a max of 9 total," this will make your summon comp be all the more important by picking and choosing when you want mass and when you want elite (with a mix of both if you want.)
What do you peeps think about this idea?
I've always operated under the assumption that a Necromancer revives corpses of enemies you've killed, using frost spells for damage and a few decent debuff curse type spells.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited July 2022
Um. In Ashes, a Necromancer is a Summoner - which means they will be able to Summon stuff without needing to rely on actual enemy corpses (or ashes of enemy corpses).
I dunno what makes you think a Summoner/Cleric would be using Frost spells, like a Mage.
I just hope necros can have there pets bury themself underground as a trap if somone getgto close or Necro tell them to attack they bust through the ground with one hand pull there head above the ground let's out a maniac skeletal laugh before lunging out of there hole rushing the target
Um. In Ashes, a Necromancer is a Summoner - which means they will be able to Summon stuff without needing to rely on actual enemy corpses (or ashes of enemy corpses).
I dunno what makes you think a Summoner/Cleric would be using Frost spells, like a Mage.
Dygz. You gotta see the implied contexts man... come on....
In most forms of media a summoner is a mage. And summoning is just a single school of magic..................
It would make sense for a summoner. A practicer of magic, to use basic spells from other schools.... and focus on summoning.................. and thats what that guy was saying. He wasnt implying what the class will be in ashes.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
In Ashes, a Necromancer is a Summoner/Cleric.
Other media are irrelevant.
That's what I'm saying.
In Ashes, a Necromancer is a Summoner/Cleric.
Other media are irrelevant.
That's what I'm saying.
Alright lest discuss what we know of the summoner in ashes, and tell every other person their input is invalid.
It will exist. You get 3 personal summons.
There are people who are making assumptions based off experiences in other settings. There is definitely a line but i see it more as informing people. If they want something different then they can continue to ask.
Ice is most likely something a summoner/mage gets access to. A necro (summoner/cleric) has access to the cleric's life/death augments. Wouldn't be surprised if something like crippling is associated with death which would serve a similar role to ice magic.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
"Summoners will have the ability to summon various types of summons, that range from single summons up to 3."
---Steven
"Some Summoners may Summon multiple things. Other Summoners will only be able to Summon one powerful thing."
---Steven
Um. In Ashes, a Necromancer is a Summoner - which means they will be able to Summon stuff without needing to rely on actual enemy corpses (or ashes of enemy corpses).
I dunno what makes you think a Summoner/Cleric would be using Frost spells, like a Mage.
alot of old games designed necromancers that way. especially MUDs.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Comments
Summoners are about 12% of the player base.
In a fight of 100 vs 100. There would be about 16 summoners. With summons limited to 3 per summoner as they are right now, you are already looking at 50 extra mobs involved in a fight like that. So its actually 125 vs 125.
See how quickly the numbers can get out of hand?
Ashes doesnt have an aoe damage limit, its strickly just how many targets fit in the circle. And so aoe sizes cant be all that massive because you would be able to hit say 50 targets with one attack all to easily.
To balance a horde with just aoe's would bloat aoe's potential so high that those two things would be the meta alone. Amount of summons vs nuke spells.
This is a very good argument. The game is large scale PvP focused. The more entities that are involved, the larger a strain it puts on various things.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
"Action combat is better for melee than ranged so rangers shouldn't have bows" or "large spell effects clutter the screen so mages shouldn't have AOE"
A necromancer should be able to have a mini horde to his name, if they avoid doing that then they are just gutting the class and will disappoint people.
And I've said before, making them a one shot hit would be lame too. If they are that frail and weak nobody would bother summoning them.
Entity lag has an effect on all aspects of combat. Combat designers have to design around how much lag a player may experience relative to how fast they need to react to do something. So while I don't agree with the argument, it's still a very valid argument.
That being said even if we do not increase the number of entities currently available you can have: A battle pet, 3 summons, a regular pet, and yourself. 6 entities. To me, that's not a mighty horde, but it is certainly up there. How big does a horde have to be to satisfy the necromancer in question?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
You also have your mount, that is suposed to become its own entity in later development. It shouldnt vanish when you dismount it should stay and help you fight
Define your mini horde? What do you want?
At the moment, 3 permanent summons, a battle pet, a mount, a cosmetic pet, and yourself.
And potentially skills in the shape of summons. Summon Phoenix to do a ranged fire pool as an example. Swarm of insects as a dot.
When does it become enough to be a mini horde?
Because again. It is one thing for a single player to summon some bodies.
What if a summoner only guild comes into town. 50+ players with 600+ mobs following them around, how do you @SirChancelot think a town will function with that going on?
Give me some concept of balance for this happening. Tell me why it should be okay
Summoner also being the one role that can somewhat "jack of all trades" this risk of a full party of summoners is higher for this class than any other
The more summons in town, the more potential for lag it becomes.
Even though I sympathize with Necromancer players wanting horde summons.
Hopefully Intrepid can find a happy medium that keeps Necromancer relevant, but is not a strain on the server.
Put 500 bears on screen at once?
And if 50 people all coordinated summoning maximum swarm of minions I would expect the town to get as chaotic as you would expect if 50 necromancers summoned a horde of skeletons... Where's the surprise here?
I just don't want them to half ass something because it's too difficult, which I don't see them doing... But still.
The problem is at a larger scale than you seem to think though, because we are specifically talking about ADDING potential entities to the already existing system. I definitely agree with you that 'this is what stress tests are for', and personally believe they will achieve very robust network architecture that will stave off some of the problem. That does not, however, make the concern invalid.
For example, full party of necromancers, who are around for siege summons is 48 entities. Even if we reduce the pets and mounts out of the equation that's still 40-56 entities for one party doing PvE depending on the enemy population. Probably tolerable in most situations. But sieges are a whole other beast.
There is going to be very high population caps for sieges, however, and the numbers start scaling quite a lot. 100 necromancers? 400 entities for one team, being generous assuming it's a 100 man siege and again ignoring pets (you can't ignore mounts in a siege unfortunately but it's a lot more volatile so let's exclude them.)
That's not even accounting for the enemy side. Intrepid is aiming for at LEAST 200 v 200 as a design goal. Being even more generous assuming none of the enemy are summoners or have battle pets and only half of one team is necromancers that's 700 entities. And again that's give or take another possible 200's worth of mounts.
Can I win a siege by gathering all the necromancers to lag the server during the siege window? Possibly. It depends how much combat is designed around certain high damage/cc moves being reactable and how beefy the network architecture is. But if lag matters, you have now incentivized this being a strategy and it therefore NEEDS to be a factor in design.
Either way, the more entities you add the less people you need to cause lag and the wilder the numbers become. Just adding 'three skeletons' like was suggested in the opening post isn't adding 'just two more entities'. It's adding two per person. In a 200 vs 200 siege that is, again being super generous like I was above, another 400 entities...
But wait it's actually 1200 because you can have 3 summons of 3 skelies. So that puts us at a very generous hypothetical 1900 entities+200 mounts. You have to plan your network infrastructure and combat design around this which demand trade offs no matter how genius their network engineers are. Do you see the possible technical issues and why it's a valid concern others may want addressed? We haven't even brought up siege engines, projectiles, destructible environments, or loot drops that could complicate this.
Even if we limited it down to just one group of 3 skelies that's still an extra 200-400 entities you have to worry about on top of what is already going to be necessary to account for to prevent 'The Necro Zerg' ever becoming a reality.
The true counter argument is ofc 'make those three entities just one entity' which is a valid approach. But it is debatable if that would achieve the 'horde' feeling if you knew deep down that that one entity of three skelies wasn't actually real and didn't have individual hit boxes (which as far as I understand is part of the appeal of a horde.) However, it is a far more acceptable compromise in my eyes.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
I too think if they can only half ass something the game would be better off without it... thats why summoner existing is a bit of a pain, because to do hordes right messes up a lot of systems in an actual MMO.
The route i would take for summoners to acquire more minions would be a gear trait. Gear with a permanent pet tied to it. So in trade off of better stats, you could have more summons. And it wouldnt be every single summoner walking around with 30 mobs with them
But as everyone can equip anything this also means non-summoners could get additional pets too, and everyone having a +1 on top of everything else can get out of hand too....
I think Necromancers will not be Summoning Zombie or Skeleton Hordes.
Brood Wardens might Summon a horde of insects, I suppose. I expect whatever kind of hordes a Summoner can Summon, the indviduals will be small in size.
You are also just focusing on if it runs well...
Think about greifing. There is body collision. I cant walk through your swarm of random mobs. You are still green even tho your mobs are blocking my way. I cant kill you without being punished...... i cant attack your mobs without going purple. You existing puts me at a disadvantage even when we are not fighting.
honestly 3 permanent summons is more than to be expected of that class compaired to other MMOs as well i believe...
I said at the beginning of the thread how I would love for the summoner to work, I'd be cool with 5-10. Yes if they go full swarm the minions should be weaker than one big minion. Yes some classes should struggle against a swarm summoner, while some classes are better against it. That makes sense logically too.
This whole conversation is hypothetical though, we have extremely limited info on the summoner.
I think 3 permanent, and a few temporary summons covers your 5-10.
If you can have 3 permanent summons, and a skill that summons 5 undead for 45 seconds, or that type of thing. I dont have a problem with it.
Turning 3 permanent summons into 9 permanent summons is by far too much tho
I've always operated under the assumption that a Necromancer revives corpses of enemies you've killed, using frost spells for damage and a few decent debuff curse type spells.
I dunno what makes you think a Summoner/Cleric would be using Frost spells, like a Mage.
Dygz. You gotta see the implied contexts man... come on....
In most forms of media a summoner is a mage. And summoning is just a single school of magic..................
It would make sense for a summoner. A practicer of magic, to use basic spells from other schools.... and focus on summoning.................. and thats what that guy was saying. He wasnt implying what the class will be in ashes.
Other media are irrelevant.
That's what I'm saying.
Alright lets discuss what we know of the summoner in ashes, and tell every other person their input is invalid.
It will exist. You get 3 personal summons.
There are people who are making assumptions based off experiences in other settings. There is definitely a line but i see it more as informing people. If they want something different then they can continue to ask.
Ice is most likely something a summoner/mage gets access to. A necro (summoner/cleric) has access to the cleric's life/death augments. Wouldn't be surprised if something like crippling is associated with death which would serve a similar role to ice magic.
---Steven
"Some Summoners may Summon multiple things. Other Summoners will only be able to Summon one powerful thing."
---Steven
alot of old games designed necromancers that way. especially MUDs.
I don't think we had Active Dodge in Alpha One. We did have the Dünir flip.
I don't recall player collision being an issue.