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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Sathrago

Solvryn wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

I’ll see how Intrepid implements it before I comment.

the point of them giving us a list of the systems and mechanics isnt just so that a group of yes men can wait until the game is almost finished before they start critiquing it. The op's point is valid imo. You dont need to test this to know its going to cause the above problems.

There’s not enough data worth formulating an opinion on.

So why are you even reading the forums? Theres not enough here for you to have any sort of opinion since the game doesnt exist yet.

Korela

Absolutely right. I implemented something similar in L2 through accounts with summoners located at key points on the map. I even almost stopped using regular fast travel. Multiboxing (or just alts in some games) allows you to gain an advantage. Summon is an example of a mechanic that scales with the number of accounts (to be fair, in this case there is a limitation in the form of family size and cooldown). AoC is P2W. It cannot be otherwise in a classic MMORPG. If you want to "win", you will have to "pay" thousands of dollars for computers and hundreds of dollars monthly for accounts (probably even for Internet providers, VPNs, etc).

Yes, yes, of course, I know that AoC is so dynamic that every tick of the server will be accompanied by the flight of all game objects through a black hole and their further reassembly into completely unique configurations which makes multiboxing absolutely useless copium

Solvryn

Sathrago wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

I’ll see how Intrepid implements it before I comment.

the point of them giving us a list of the systems and mechanics isnt just so that a group of yes men can wait until the game is almost finished before they start critiquing it. The op's point is valid imo. You dont need to test this to know its going to cause the above problems.

There’s not enough data worth formulating an opinion on.

So why are you even reading the forums? Theres not enough here for you to have any sort of opinion since the game doesnt exist yet.

To bump his thread because he went on about it for three hours in discord. Part of being a civil and active member of the community.

Depraved

JC31 wrote: »

Lore wise, If you're not a magic user, you shall not teleport yourself or others. End of story. You don't get to teleport your family just because you're a family. You would have to be the right class first of all. A warrior is not going to teleport anyone any where, ever.

lore wise where? is it ashes lore or general fantasy lore?

what if your a technology freak and you create a device that can build wormholes and teleport people.

Dryadez wrote: »

JC31 wrote: »

Lore wise, If you're not a magic user, you shall not teleport yourself or others. End of story. You don't get to teleport your family just because you're a family. You would have to be the right class first of all. A warrior is not going to teleport anyone any where, ever.

I wouldn't mind summoning being something that like a mage whos partially specced into it and it takes valuable resources for the spell. Summoning someone who is on the other side of the world I'd assume is more difficult than shooting a few bolts of lightning. Summoning should not be a casual thing in any game.

When WoW had mass summon/ressurections for guilds it decimated pvp.

what if the summoner archetype could summon people then with a fairly short cooldown?

that would make sense and would be worse (more convenient) than family summon.

also wow is a different game with different skills and different rules in pvp.

JC31 wrote: »

If they are going to make all 64 classes and archetypes viable they need to get their terms straight and quit goofing with pansy ass "FAMILY SUMMONS". Oh my, we forgot to make a class that can teleport or summon people oh noes!!!

We also forgot to make a class that can enchant people's equipment!! CRAP WE NAMED A CLASS ENCHANTER AND DIDN"T GIVE IT THE POWER TO ENCHANT GEAR WE EFFED UP!!

enchanter doesnt mean you can enchant gear. maybe you just enchant people with buffs...or they are like sirens and just charm people or something.

Korela wrote: »

Absolutely right. I implemented something similar in L2 through accounts with summoners located at key points on the map. I even almost stopped using regular fast travel. Multiboxing (or just alts in some games) allows you to gain an advantage. Summon is an example of a mechanic that scales with the number of accounts (to be fair, in this case there is a limitation in the form of family size and cooldown). AoC is P2W. It cannot be otherwise in a classic MMORPG. If you want to "win", you will have to "pay" thousands of dollars for computers and hundreds of dollars monthly for accounts (probably even for Internet providers, VPNs, etc).
Yes, yes, of course, I know that AoC is so dynamic that every tick of the server will be accompanied by the flight of all game objects through a black hole and their further reassembly into completely unique configurations which makes multiboxing absolutely useless copium

thats very easy to do in private servers wen you can make free accounts. also you dont even need the summoner to be max level, just level 56. you summon then log off. most people wont pay for a 2nd account

Scarctic

Dryadez wrote: »

I'm so tired of games these days giving everybody handicaps. I remember one of the best parts about WoW was me and my friends having completely different experiences as different races. If we wanted to quest together.. guess what.. GET HIKING AND CATCH THE BOAT you got an adventure ahead of you, assuming you know where your going. It gave each race a unique feel and an attachment to your homeland... imagine starting out as an elf in the snowy mountain with dwarves, yeah makes alot of sense. As you can tell I'm not even a fan of each race being able to use any divine gateway they want. Tulnar as an exception.

Don't listen to streamers who say things and support things like summoning people. They just want a quick way to 0-100 through the game for their streams. Ignore them for the most part they will always want it to be easier.

No teleporting, no fast traveling all over STOP IT. Stop making the game EASIER we dont want EASIER if we wanted quick and easy we would not be playing MMORPG's. These types of games are suppose to test your patience, your resolve and your wits. Stop dumbing it down to mobile game level IQ friendly.

I will not have much time to play, a few hours most days at best. Guess what? I don't mind traveling the long way around, I don't mind having to go through lengths to meetup with friends. It makes the world feel bigger, it makes it more alive. If i spend an hour of my playtime on traveling through the elements to get to a specific destination, that was an hour well spent. Not "Oh yeah summon pls"

OPs opinion?
100% YES

Yours also yes in an already established world with factions and race-specific areas,
but in Verra with that kind of historical background and lore?
NO!

To reason with Stevens's vision about the whole world as a sandbox for every race and class we need to give them equal rights to go wherever they want. Free choice for each portal.
We could alter the lore and say that the spirit conduits teleportation only works on their respective racial gateway but that would predict a similar outcome of many months on each server.

And what kind of other player-driven stories do we miss if we restrict them in this way?...

If you want to settle in the lands of your forefathers you can totally do it but to make a race and its racial features predominant you have to organize similar-thinking players, families, and guilds to do that.

I agree with the rest of your points tho.

Streamers don't need summons, they get flooded by their patriotic sect followers anyway...
We need meaningful traveling without any personal individual teleportation. Only the science node metro gates seem plausible enough if people want it they at least have to fight for it. ^^

Caww

from the wiki: "Leaving one family and joining another family will have a cooldown period in the order of days.[1]"

as long as the CD is a week or more before joining a new family, then abusing the travel aspect will be limited since it would really only apply to the 9 players that want to be together

GrappLr

Dryadez wrote: »

I'm so tired of games these days giving everybody handicaps. I remember one of the best parts about WoW was me and my friends having completely different experiences as different races. If we wanted to quest together.. guess what.. GET HIKING AND CATCH THE BOAT you got an adventure ahead of you, assuming you know where your going. It gave each race a unique feel and an attachment to your homeland... imagine starting out as an elf in the snowy mountain with dwarves, yeah makes alot of sense. As you can tell I'm not even a fan of each race being able to use any divine gateway they want. Tulnar as an exception.

Don't listen to streamers who say things and support things like summoning people. They just want a quick way to 0-100 through the game for their streams. Ignore them for the most part they will always want it to be easier.

No teleporting, no fast traveling all over STOP IT. Stop making the game EASIER we dont want EASIER if we wanted quick and easy we would not be playing MMORPG's. These types of games are suppose to test your patience, your resolve and your wits. Stop dumbing it down to mobile game level IQ friendly.

I will not have much time to play, a few hours most days at best. Guess what? I don't mind traveling the long way around, I don't mind having to go through lengths to meetup with friends. It makes the world feel bigger, it makes it more alive. If i spend an hour of my playtime on traveling through the elements to get to a specific destination, that was an hour well spent. Not "Oh yeah summon pls"

Could not have said it better myself.

I think the summoning system, while it may have good intentions, is either a huge miss on their part, or them being afraid to be "too hardcore", and trying to appeal to casuals.

Sad thing is, appealing to casuals might not even make the game better for casuals.

Raven016

Depraved wrote: »

4- read 1. still have to walk to where you want to summon and do a normal travel. if this is an issue, why u dont complain about scientific nodes teleporting ability? thats probably more op.

A good reason to siege them

Gizban

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

Sathrago

pyreal wrote: »

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

while this is nice for this specific use, family summoning creates an extremely toxic meta for guilds/alliances. Id rather not have it be a standard that guilds require you to join their chosen family to be in the guild.

Depraved

Sathrago wrote: »

pyreal wrote: »

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

while this is nice for this specific use, family summoning creates an extremely toxic meta for guilds/alliances. Id rather not have it be a standard that guilds require you to join their chosen family to be in the guild.

just join the guild with your family ?_?

Sathrago

Depraved wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

pyreal wrote: »

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

while this is nice for this specific use, family summoning creates an extremely toxic meta for guilds/alliances. Id rather not have it be a standard that guilds require you to join their chosen family to be in the guild.

just join the guild with your family ?_?

? you do realize that if guilds are organizing families, they are going to require you to play specific setups. 2 tank 2 heal 1 sup 5 dps for example.

They are not gonna just slap people together, there will be a meta "family comp" that people will start enforcing.

Or we could just not have this mechanic and reduce the toxic meta that it will bring.

Liniker

yea I say get rid of family summoning there should be NO teleporting imo

Depraved

Sathrago wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

pyreal wrote: »

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

while this is nice for this specific use, family summoning creates an extremely toxic meta for guilds/alliances. Id rather not have it be a standard that guilds require you to join their chosen family to be in the guild.

just join the guild with your family ?_?

? you do realize that if guilds are organizing families, they are going to require you to play specific setups. 2 tank 2 heal 1 sup 5 dps for example.

They are not gonna just slap people together, there will be a meta "family comp" that people will start enforcing.

Or we could just not have this mechanic and reduce the toxic meta that it will bring.

this is no different from playing in a CP

also whats wrong with a guild asking for specific classes? they dont have to recruit everybody. and not all guilds are like that. if a guild has 1 cleric and 50 rogues for example, they can say "hey we dont want more rogues, we want more clerics" whats wrong with that?

if thats somehow bad to you, because they are excluding people, or saying "play this or you arent welcome", then what about dwarf only guilds or orc only guilds, or crafter only guilds, etc, etc. i dont see you criticizing them.

Sathrago

Depraved wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

pyreal wrote: »

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

while this is nice for this specific use, family summoning creates an extremely toxic meta for guilds/alliances. Id rather not have it be a standard that guilds require you to join their chosen family to be in the guild.

just join the guild with your family ?_?

? you do realize that if guilds are organizing families, they are going to require you to play specific setups. 2 tank 2 heal 1 sup 5 dps for example.

They are not gonna just slap people together, there will be a meta "family comp" that people will start enforcing.

Or we could just not have this mechanic and reduce the toxic meta that it will bring.

this is no different from playing in a CP

also whats wrong with a guild asking for specific classes? they dont have to recruit everybody. and not all guilds are like that. if a guild has 1 cleric and 50 rogues for example, they can say "hey we dont want more rogues, we want more clerics" whats wrong with that?

if thats somehow bad to you, because they are excluding people, or saying "play this or you arent welcome", then what about dwarf only guilds or orc only guilds, or crafter only guilds, etc, etc. i dont see you criticizing them.

My problem isnt specific case or my choices or anything like that. Its what a system like this does to the mind of players who want to be "serious" about the game.

I see this system creating the exact same type of toxic meta as dps meters did in various other games. There are going to be plenty of different ways to transport your character across the world, and maybe you should slow down a bit if you really want to play with your friends.

Depraved

Sathrago wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

pyreal wrote: »

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

while this is nice for this specific use, family summoning creates an extremely toxic meta for guilds/alliances. Id rather not have it be a standard that guilds require you to join their chosen family to be in the guild.

just join the guild with your family ?_?

? you do realize that if guilds are organizing families, they are going to require you to play specific setups. 2 tank 2 heal 1 sup 5 dps for example.

They are not gonna just slap people together, there will be a meta "family comp" that people will start enforcing.

Or we could just not have this mechanic and reduce the toxic meta that it will bring.

this is no different from playing in a CP

also whats wrong with a guild asking for specific classes? they dont have to recruit everybody. and not all guilds are like that. if a guild has 1 cleric and 50 rogues for example, they can say "hey we dont want more rogues, we want more clerics" whats wrong with that?

if thats somehow bad to you, because they are excluding people, or saying "play this or you arent welcome", then what about dwarf only guilds or orc only guilds, or crafter only guilds, etc, etc. i dont see you criticizing them.

My problem isnt specific case or my choices or anything like that. Its what a system like this does to the mind of players who want to be "serious" about the game.

I see this system creating the exact same type of toxic meta as dps meters did in various other games. There are going to be plenty of different ways to transport your character across the world, and maybe you should slow down a bit if you really want to play with your friends.

i get what you mean, but if its not this, then very competitive people will organize themselves and do whatever is best anyways. nothing wrong with that.

anyways, speaking of family summons, remember that you still have to walk to the area where you want to summon your family, and you might not even be able to get there alone in many cases.

also, after youve been to an area, you cant really say there is exploration because you already know whats there waiting for you. pherhaps family summon cant be used on someone who hasnt at been to that area at least once on foot.

what i like about this system is that if you are deep inside a cave and the healer dies and you cant res, or someone dies and accidentally goes back to town, or someone has to go resupply, you can just resummon and keep the party going. you have no idea how many times ive had to stop farming after only 2 hours because things like this happened and people werent in the mood to spend 1 hour getting back to the farming spot again.

Gizban

Sathrago wrote: »

pyreal wrote: »

I like the idea of Family Summons.

If I know my friend is logging in sometime after 6:00, I can freely adventure when I log in at 4:30.

I don't need to hobble myself to an area so we're close by when he does get on.

while this is nice for this specific use, family summoning creates an extremely toxic meta for guilds/alliances. Id rather not have it be a standard that guilds require you to join their chosen family to be in the guild.

Then don't join a guild that tries to force that, and it won't become the standard. Be pig headed like me.

daveywavey

Depraved wrote: »

why u dont complain about scientific nodes teleporting ability? thats probably more op.

I don't like the Sci Node's teleport ability, either.

"No Fast Travel" should mean No Fast Travel.

Raven016

Think from game design perspective.
Steven's objective is to provide fun through the risk vs reward and to bring players together.
If a player has nothing to lose when running toward the team, there is no risk.
If the family summon is removed, risk should be added to the solo player trying to reach the group.
But we have no full loot in AoC.

The complaint that family summon is harmful may come from a small group in an area facing another small group, both of them starting to summon their friends and then realizing that one of them runs out of friends and they could have won some fight if such a feature would not exist.
That is similar to small group vs large group fight (they call it zerg).

BlackBrony

I do get it.
The game is about exclusivity. Now it's not only time, it seems it's also money. It makes sense though, Steven is a rich guy, so for him it's only fair to be able to spend 200 USD a month to get teleport skill. It's only accessible to rich people, people like him.
Everything else is restricted by play time and organization, but the only thing that could break the game, it' s, oh surprise, gated behind a huge paywall.
Color me surprised...

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