Nerf summoners to the ground
issueid=2905 04-28-2014 01:21 PM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by asdf: 54
Nerf summoners to the ground
http://i.imgur.com/bu643Zs.png

You hit the silver wolf with full force and slay it.
The werewolf lord summons some help! The werewolf lord summons some help!
You miss the kobold chieftain. The werewolf lord summons some help! The kobold
chieftain misses you.
You hit the kobold chieftain and moderately wound him. The werewolf lord
summons some help! The kobold chieftain misses you.
You hit the kobold chieftain with full force and slay him. The werewolf lord
summons some help!
You miss the werewolf. The werewolf misses you. The werewolf lord summons some
help!
You hit the werewolf and moderately wound him. The werewolf misses you. The
werewolf summons some help!
The werewolf looks exhausted. The werewolf squeezes past the werewolf.
You hit the werewolf and moderately wound him. The werewolf misses you.
You miss the werewolf. The werewolf lord summons some help! The werewolf

I didnt even had the time to get out of the corridor, when room was already filled with monsters. 35 monsters out of nowhere, in a matter of several turns. This is as anti-fun as it could be. Especially when due to new monster distribution you spend half you time on lower levels grinding through summoners in obscene numbers, because they actually spawn A LOT more frequently (which is good, but their summoning powers IS NOT).

Ordinary summoners need to be nerfed HARD. VERY HARD.

Beginner summoners - wererat, jackalwere, werewolf
2 summons per round, 2 summon rounds, 4 summons total (summoner cant summon at all after exhausting available summon rounds)

Weak summoners - black wizard, necromancer, blink dog, dark elven wizard, dark elven priestess
2-3 summons per round, 2-3 summon rounds, 4-9 summons total

Normal summoners - lich, shadow wyrm, dark elven princess, werewolf lord, dark elven princess
3-4 summons per round, 3-4 summon rounds, 9-16 summons total

Hard summoners - master lich, master necromancer, werewolf king
4-6 summons per round, 4-6 summon rounds, 16-36 summons total

Very hard summoners - balor, lich king, skeletal king
5-8 summons per round, 6-10 summon rounds, 30-80 summons total

Master summoners - Master Summoner, greater balor, emperor lich
6-10 summons per round, no limit for summon rounds
Issue Details
Issue Number 2905
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 1 - Highest
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 23
Implemented Version ADOM r48
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 12
Votes against this feature 3
Attachments 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)


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05-16-2014 08:41 AM
Ancient Member
I find it really annoying when I get a bunch of spiders thrown in my face every time I cross the Big Room which proceed to cover all the area with webs which leads to even more message spam. Turning my brain on at this moment means I won't have enough potions of invis for the end game.

In my experience there is practically zero difference between summons after they were supposedly nerfed and we really need to go further.
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05-16-2014 12:46 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
This is my issue with this RFE - it takes using your brain out of the situation, and brings fighting summoners down to 'smash them all until they're all dead'.
Currently, summoners don't make me use my brain, they make me use "Fast_More".
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05-16-2014 01:00 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
ps. I kinda concede that I'm in the minority here, and most ADOM players want things to be easier.
It's not a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of tedium.
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05-16-2014 08:56 PM
Junior Member
My experience with summoners as a total noob, for what it's worth :

On my first character with the tiles version, a Human Paladin, I met a summoner (don't remember the name, some kind of sorcerer?) in the Village Dungeon.
He came into view near the only exit of the room I was in, and by the time I got halfway to him he was already surrounded by monsters.
A few turns laters, the visible zone was 100% filled with monsters. Didn't seem like weak monsters either, there were some kind of giants (or trolls? Don't remember exactly).
I was able to heal myself to full life 3-4 times by praying, but even with all that life I only had time to kill one of the summons before dying. And he probably was able to summon 30 more by the time I killed this one.
It seemed weird to suddenly meet an enemy so insanely powerful, in one of the first dungeons, especially since all of the other monsters were very easy for my characters, even Yriggs (boss?).

Was there a way to get out of this this early on?
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05-16-2014 09:05 PM
Ancient Member
You probably got smacked by a black wizard. Probably the only escape was to run away.
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05-16-2014 09:10 PM
Senior Member
Dino - as SirTheta said, probably a black wizard. Adom is fairly unique among adventure games in that it still sometimes throws you situations where the only answer is to walk away!
(resisting the urge to add snark here ;) )
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05-16-2014 11:16 PM
Junior Member
Well, he was guarding the only exit of the room :(.
I guess it was an out of depth monster and I was unlucky to meet it, especially while in a dead end. That summoning speed was crazy though :p
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05-17-2014 06:53 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
brings fighting summoners down to 'smash them all until they're all dead'.
That's pretty much what you have to do now. And pretty much for the last 10 years or so. Use whatever magic you have to bolt through the meat shields to hopefully kill the summoner then spend however long it takes holding down the relevent direction key while stood at your chosen choke point. This is a no brainer really and there isn't much room for thinking unless you're really going out of your way to avoid the above. Darkelves are a pain as they shrug bolts and are fast so it's fairly easy for them to panic when they're at 10% health or whatever, shrug off what should be the finishing blow then leg it over all the webs their damn spiders have laid, into the furthest corner of the level and summon more damn spiders.

The big room is a joke. Once you've got resistnace and are generally tough enough to withstand tarantula attacks they are just *the* biggest pain in the arse. No choke points nothing to bunch them in and all the goddamn webs. Big room challenges are monsters that you just can't handle and avoiding cats (and hopefully getting them killed) if you're into that sort of thing.

Oh and summoned summoners should not summon! NOT. FUN. Not a challenge either just tedium. Allow werewolf lords and kings and whatever to summon lesser werewolves along with the usual dire wolves and normal wolves but they should just be there to fight and not summon more. I think they should be summoned themselves more often as they are a little bit more of a challenge.
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06-10-2014 05:59 PM
Senior Member
Another idea:
Make summoners summon on 100%/75%/50%/25% hp or every 25 hp if they have more then 100 HP.

Pros -
* Summoner will summon only once if you are trying to avoid it, eliminating "swarmed by rats/wolfs/jackals" problem.
* Weak summoners will soon cease to be a problem due to them being one-hit or two-hit, giving two round of summons at best
* You will be able to kill any summoners if you clear their summons first (no more liches summoning 2352626 rounds of monsters and hiding behind them)
* Strong summoners will summon a lot more then the weak summoners
* The more damage you deal - the less summoners will summon

Things to look at:
* Master Summoner would not be as "master" anymore, perhaps each monster he summoned should be random and their number per summon should be increased
* Summoners should not reset their summoning HP level when healed. If you killed all summons of emperor lich until 50 hp, and he healed back to full - he should not summon anymore, only exception to this should be Master Summoner
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06-10-2014 07:59 PM
Junior Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
ps. I kinda concede that I'm in the minority here, and most ADOM players want things to be easier.
I don't think it's a matter of wanting things to be easier. It's more about creating less of these tedious situations.
(By the time you've fought 15 of a creature, what more have you learned by fighting another 30 or more?)
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06-27-2014 05:34 AM
The Creator
I once more have worked on this and introduced two new parameters:
- Between two summons for almost all monsters there now is enforced time delay until when they will summon next (so no more two consecutive summons).
- Each monster has a certain maximum number of beings it can summon. Although this also slowly refreshes it takes a while.
In combination this hopefully finally will reign in summoners. Let's test it with the next release.
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