Have summoners summon fewer, more powerful allies
issueid=2108 04-11-2013 05:51 AM
Ancient Member
Number of reported issues by Grond: 971
Have summoners summon fewer, more powerful allies

Currently, summoners generate an enormous amount of monsters. I feel the current volume is bad for a couple reasons:
  1. It's very binary: it tends to lead to situations which are either impossible or trivial to deal with (usually the latter in my experience). If you have to fight through 40 spiders, either you take negligible amounts of damage, or you are almost certainly going to die.
  2. Regardless of difficulty, it's incredibly tedious to deal with. Personally, I find dealing with summoners probably the most frustrating aspect of the game.

I suggest reducing the total number of summons down to 2-8 (perhaps more for late game summoners like Yulgash). That's enough to block the PC in an open space, but not so many that it's impossible to power through a couple summons and make a break for it. Making the smaller number of summons tougher would make summoners more of a genuine challenge, and would make more sense for summoners who are currently much more powerful than their summons.
Issue Details
Issue Number 2108
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 5 - Medium
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 13
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 21
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 17
Votes against this feature 5
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




04-11-2013 06:00 AM
Ancient Member
This is a fantastic idea. Summoners are one of the most tedious areas of the game and desperately need this improvement.

04-11-2013 08:58 AM
Ancient Member
I totally agree with the OP. Most summoners are just too tedious at their current summoning rate.

04-11-2013 10:39 AM
Member
No way, just adjust the drop rate back to normal. I would hate to see them summon stronger monsters. There just is no reward for killing them at the moment.

Just about every single challenge in the game either kills you or deals very little damage at all.

04-11-2013 03:31 PM
Ancient Member
Adjusting the drop rate doesn't really make summoners less tedious, it just rewards you for doing something tedious - like any scumming technique. What makes summoners obnoxious is that wading through their hordes is often unavoidable; with boring, repetitive stuff like herb farming and smithing there's at least nothing forcing you to do it.

04-11-2013 06:31 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Grond
Adjusting the drop rate doesn't really make summoners less tedious, it just rewards you for doing something tedious - like any scumming technique. What makes summoners obnoxious is that wading through their hordes is often unavoidable; with boring, repetitive stuff like herb farming and smithing there's at least nothing forcing you to do it.
I agree.

04-11-2013 06:37 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Grond
Adjusting the drop rate doesn't really make summoners less tedious, it just rewards you for doing something tedious - like any scumming technique. What makes summoners obnoxious is that wading through their hordes is often unavoidable; with boring, repetitive stuff like herb farming and smithing there's at least nothing forcing you to do it.
Also the fact that even if the summoner enters melee range with you, there's a good chance that they will be swapped away the next turn before you have a chance to kill them, extending the process considerably.

04-11-2013 07:18 PM
Member
They are supposed to be tedious.

04-11-2013 08:12 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Bieks
They are supposed to be tedious.
Why should they be tedious? Games are supposed to be fun, not boring! Summoners as they are add almost nothing to the fun of the game, they just mean you have to thoughtlessly execute the same sequence of actions over and over.

On the other hand I think it's perfectly fine for elements of the game to be frustrating: getting disarmed is frustrating, having items destroyed by traps is frustrating, getting a nasty corruption is frustrating, dying is frustrating. These are the sorts of things that make you grit your teeth, adjust your strategies, and try even harder to win. Summoners are a different kind of frustrating: an attack on your patience rather than on the PC's life and possessions.

04-11-2013 08:19 PM
Ancient Member
It would be nice if there were an item like a scroll of vermin control that applied to summoners... Or something like a wand that could dispel summons?

04-11-2013 09:59 PM
Senior Member
I am happy with the current behavior after the fixing of the uberjackal bug. I'm against the change.

04-12-2013 05:01 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Grond
Adjusting the drop rate doesn't really make summoners less tedious, it just rewards you for doing something tedious - like any scumming technique. What makes summoners obnoxious is that wading through their hordes is often unavoidable; with boring, repetitive stuff like herb farming and smithing there's at least nothing forcing you to do it.
I heartily endorse this message.

04-23-2013 01:52 PM
Junior Member
On the other hand I think it's perfectly fine for elements of the game to be frustrating: getting disarmed is frustrating, having items destroyed by traps is frustrating, getting a nasty corruption is frustrating, dying is frustrating. These are the sorts of things that make you grit your teeth, adjust your strategies, and try even harder to win. Summoners are a different kind of frustrating: an attack on your patience rather than on the PC's life and possessions.
This. i support this feature

04-26-2013 03:21 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer
It would be nice if there were an item like a scroll of vermin control that applied to summoners... Or something like a wand that could dispel summons?
Wand of Abjuration? :)

04-27-2013 12:25 AM
Senior Member
Agree that the summoners are currently too much of a pain. Earlier you could atleast have the excitment of the loot you might find from the summons, but no we don't have even that, and they number of summons is way larger than earlier. I would prefer lowering the number of summons and implementing at least a low drop rate.

04-27-2013 03:03 AM
Ancient Member
To me it feels as if there are fewer and they are much easier to kill, probably due to the 'uber-jackal effect' being toned down.

They still provide training and food.

I would say make them slightly stronger, but in my view 'animals' should not drop loot. The others should drop something on the odd occasion. I mean the raiders are shooting arrows at me, surely they must have a bow and some more arrows left when they die.

08-12-2013 12:14 AM
Member
I would suggest, for my part, making the summonings into Diminishing Returns.

For example, say a wererat summons 2d4+4 rats (I don't know the number; I literally pulled that out of my ass). Every time it summons, reduce the roll by a -1. So the next time it would summon 2d4+3. Then 2d4+2. And so on down. Eventually, it'd be summoning something like 2d4-10, and will be getting only miniscule, or zero creatures for summon.

This would still allow for high numbers of summoning creatures at the start (I feel there *should* be), but the tediousness will go down, and make them easier to kill.

Obviously the numbers hree are very tentative. But it gives you an idea of the sort of thing I'm wanting to suggest. Maybe lowering it faster, or slower.

08-12-2013 12:56 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Stingray1
To me it feels as if there are fewer and they are much easier to kill, probably due to the 'uber-jackal effect' being toned down.

They still provide training and food.

I would say make them slightly stronger, but in my view 'animals' should not drop loot. The others should drop something on the odd occasion. I mean the raiders are shooting arrows at me, surely they must have a bow and some more arrows left when they die.
I completely agree with Stingray that animals should not drop anything other than corpses. I don't know how hard it would be to implement this by I (with my admittedly bizarre set of gameplay priorities) would really like to see that change instituted.

08-12-2013 12:59 AM
Senior Member
Another question, and I'm just throwing this out there for discussion, is: Do we really need to keep summoners at all? A lot of people seem to dislike them or find them tedious, and I guess I wonder if they really perform any kind of vital function.

Would you guys miss jackalweres or were-rats if they were removed from the game?

08-12-2013 03:52 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Greyling
I completely agree with Stingray that animals should not drop anything other than corpses. I don't know how hard it would be to implement this by I (with my admittedly bizarre set of gameplay priorities) would really like to see that change instituted.
It's best not to mess with how item drops work too much. If you're going to prevent animals from dropping items under the grounds it doesn't make sense, then you'd have to remove random drops entirely - humanoids and other intelligent monsters can also drop very powerful items they weren't using or even had the ability to carry. Rats dropping plate mail is undoubtedly nonsensical, but where is the average PC going to get his stuff otherwise?

As for summoners, if they generate frustration that's indeed a problem which should be fixed, but they shouldn't be removed from the game. Some enemies happen to have the ability to call for help, which they can and happily will use against the player. That's the basic idea, and I don't see a problem with it. Mowing down endless waves of spiders and jackals, on the other hand...

08-12-2013 04:53 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by anon123
It's best not to mess with how item drops work too much. If you're going to prevent animals from dropping items under the grounds it doesn't make sense, then you'd have to remove random drops entirely - humanoids and other intelligent monsters can also drop very powerful items they weren't using or even had the ability to carry.
Anon, remember who you are talking to here. I really would like to see things like that implemented. Like I said, I have pretty bizarre priorities when it comes to gameplay mechanics. But I realize animals are always going to drop things they could not possibly be carrying in ADOM.

Quote Originally Posted by anon123
Rats dropping plate mail is undoubtedly nonsensical, but where is the average PC going to get his stuff otherwise?
There's another thread where I'm talking to jellyslayer about this exact topic right now. I guess my argument is that the reward should be proportional to the risk, so that drop quality should depend on enemy threat level. The PC would have to seek out and fight more challenging enemies if they wanted the plate mail.

Quote Originally Posted by anon123
As for summoners, if they generate frustration that's indeed a problem which should be fixed, but they shouldn't be removed from the game. Some enemies happen to have the ability to call for help, which they can and happily will use against the player. That's the basic idea, and I don't see a problem with it. Mowing down endless waves of spiders and jackals, on the other hand...
Really, I'm not asking for them to be removed, I was more curious what other people thought of that idea. However, I do kind of get the feeling that all the fixes to the summoner issue make summoners, well, less like summoners. Taking that idea to its logical conclusion, you have to wonder if the ultimate solution wouldn't be to remove them entirely.

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