Nerf summoners to the ground
issueid=2905 04-28-2014 02:21 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
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




04-28-2014 02:26 PM
Ancient Member
I agree, and even for very hard summoners I wouldn't let them summon 30-80 monsters. It's more fun if they summon more powerful monsters, but in a significantly smaller number than that.

04-28-2014 02:28 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Al-Khwarizmi
I agree, and even for very hard summoners I wouldn't let them summon 30-80 monsters. It's more fun if they summon more powerful monsters, but in a significantly smaller number than that.
Its just one or two filled rooms like in my screenshot. There still should be a way to wait them out, just not easy. They are really strong after all, but currently you could kill more then 80 summons from a bad spider factory - its not as bad as it looks like.

However them summoning rare and powerful monsters in small quantities could be very good solution too.

04-28-2014 02:44 PM
Ancient Member
Let's keep in mind that any change here will also apply to blink dogs.. I vote yes to a lower number of summons, but not to an extreme degree.

Wererats are actually okay the way they are, imo. Summoning 2-4 rats would be a bit underwhelming.

In general I think that it's better to nerf the number of summons in a uniform way, instead of tying it to the level of the summoner. So if a werewolf summons 10 wolves, a werewolf king should also summon 10 werewolf lords. Otherwise, low-level summoners become total pushovers while high-level summoners become extremely dangerous.

Of course a special exception for the master summoner would be good.

04-28-2014 02:51 PM
Ancient Member
Yes yes yes.

04-28-2014 02:53 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by grobblewobble
Otherwise, low-level summoners become total pushovers while high-level summoners become extremely dangerous.
Considering that early game is the most dangerous part for now, and multiple RFEs are increasing endgame difficulty - i think this is actually would be a good change to keep difficulty more level.

04-28-2014 03:10 PM
Senior Member
Wow, this is considered priority 1? The most important issue to possibly affect the game?

I personally like having to figure out how to kill a summoner before he gets out of control. Brings a little more thought to combat, and increases the use of intelligent play and positioning, so I voted against this.

04-28-2014 03:20 PM
Ancient Member
Sylph, how do you propose to intelligently kill a summoner before he gets out of control, when you have no teleportation and no invisibility and he notices you in the big room from 10 squares away?
Or any room for that matter? After that he immediately summons and blocks the path of arrows.
There is no way to do that without having to waddle through waves after waves of monsters.
I've tried many methods of dealing with summoners, including some extreme measures that require certain sacrifices and advanced spells from the player but they are far from effective.
Summoners need this change and it's currently the most annoying thing in the game, which is why I understand priority 1 on this.
Asdf is being gentle with his suggestions, I would cut down on the summons even more.

04-28-2014 03:53 PM
Senior Member
Sylph, how do you propose to intelligently kill a summoner before he gets out of control, when you have no teleportation and no invisibility and he notices you in the big room from 10 squares away?
Excluding methods of dealing with it in your question is a bit unfair though. It's like me saying 'how do you propose you'd intelligently rescue yriggs, assuming jharod is already dead, you have no spells, your weapon is cursed, rusty and broken, and a cat is blocking your way out of D:7'? Anyone can set up a can't-win situation! The fact is, you entered the big room without any means of escape or stealth! That's your own fault! :D
For the record, though, I'd bolt the summoner, or go back to the stairs and hop up and down them until I'd cleared all the summons.

I'm not disputing the fact, btw, that summoners are a massive problem when they get to summon. I'm simply saying that if you make them NOT a massive problem when they get to summon, I'll just hack-and-slash my way through them instead of playing tactically.

04-28-2014 05:04 PM
Ancient Member
For the record, though, I'd bolt the summoner, or go back to the stairs and hop up and down them until I'd cleared all the summons.
That is what I do as well.
I did not present you with some kind of unique scenario that is one in a million.
Not having sources of invisibility and controlled teleportation at the same time is a *very* common situation; it isn't a no-win situation, it's a situation that happens 50% of the time however you play.

Entering big room is necessary to continue with the game, eventually, though I typically do that once I can kill anything that big room may throw at me.
Notice that I'm not disputing the difficulty of summoners because they are not difficult to deal with, for the most part.
Difficulty however does not equal annoyance.
I don't dispute the difficulty of this game because the very principle of roguelikes and Adom specifically is that they are difficult.
I'm disputing the tedious/grindy methods that players are forced to resort to, in order to deal with them.
I can cast a hundred bolts and dispatch them, no matter how many are summoned.
I can stairhop between big room and another level two dozen times and easily deal with the small numbers that follow me.
But all of the above doesn't improve the game, it only takes away from the positive experience.

04-28-2014 05:25 PM
Ancient Member
Summoners don't seem to be any worse in pre22 than in 1.1.1. I've seen a werewolf lord fill a room before. OTOH, my impression was that the number of summons was supposed to be toned down a bit in a previous RFE.

If anything, I get the feeling like summoners may summon less monsters per spawn in pre22, but have many more available summon attempts before they get exhausted. But I haven't played enough to be able to say for certain.

04-28-2014 05:27 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer
Summoners don't seem to be any worse in pre22 than in 1.1.1. I've seen a werewolf lord fill a room before. OTOH, my impression was that the number of summons was supposed to be toned down a bit in a previous RFE.
Filling the room is just part of the problem. Main one is that you encounter them 10 times more due to changes in monster rarity, and they are 10 times as annoying. Slight nerf to them makes them maybe 7-8 times more annoying then in p20, but still extremely annoying.

04-28-2014 05:29 PM
Ancient Member
I like tactical ways to deal with things, but if they fail, the punishment should not be tedium. Tedium is never good in a game and having to clear 100 identical weakish monsters typically falls squarely into that category.

04-28-2014 10:25 PM
Senior Member
Do summoned summoners summon as well? I had a same issue with a werewolf (king maybe?) that managed to fill medium (6x5 i guess) 2 rooms on D48 that had 3 of the anomalies in. Clearing the rooms and the ajoining corridor gave me 2 corruptions :(

The worst are spiders in the big room. You get surrounded, which is bad, and have have to wade through fair too many to reach the dark elf that summoned them, but all the messages of all the other monsters getting stuck in webs drives me insane. "You miss the giant spider. The giant spider misses you. The large spider misses you. The large spider misses you. The tarantula misses you. The giant spider misses you THe giant spider misses you. The giant spider misses you. The large kobold is stuck in the web! The giant rat is stuck in the web! The female orc is stuck in the web! Something is holding the giant bat! The jackal breaks free of the webs! The large kobold seems to get stuck in something!" etc every frickin turn! The grind to kill of them is horrible enough, having to clear 3-5 lines of message text every "*$Ģing turn drives me utterly utterly mental.

Summoners are a cool element but quickly become binary: a chore or certain death. As Al-Khwarizmi said it would be better to maybe have higher level summoners increase in quality rather than quantity. Fighting 10 werewolf lords would be more dangerous than 40-odd mixed wolves AND so much less of a bore.

05-09-2014 10:46 AM
Senior Member
Werewolf lords are horrible in particular because they summon more summoners. I believe they're the only non-endgame monsters to do this? I think they're by far the biggest problem since they have the greatest capacity to overwealm you before you have the tools to deal with them. I'd prefer that they didn't summon werewolves at all, or were moved to a greater DL with a buff to their combat stats.

In general, I'd prefer summoners have even less summons than asdf is suggesting, and just have the minions be a bit stronger.

I agree that you can handle the big room and other places by abusing hopping up/down stairs or by bottlenecking them and cutting down hordes of 100 summoned monsters one at a time, but it is BOR-ING!

05-09-2014 11:23 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by shockeroo
Werewolf lords are horrible in particular because they summon more summoners. I believe they're the only non-endgame monsters to do this?
There are also werewolf kings, who summon werewolf lords.

05-09-2014 01:42 PM
Senior Member
I'm not so worried about the kings because you don't encounter them until a bit later.

05-10-2014 08:30 PM
Senior Member
50 giant rats, 58 rats, 2 wererats killed.

I appreciate the weapons/shield training, a little bit of drop, and some experience - but all that was required of my character was to keep arrow key pressed in a corridor. It is not that bad as it was before, without a drop - but still, do low-level summoners _really_ need to be able to summon 50+ monsters?

05-11-2014 12:30 AM
Senior Member
Liches aside summoners in the mid and late game are a problem purely because they're a pain in the butt. They're not really very tough neither are their summons, they just fill up space for a bit. They become problematic if this gives tougher, scarier monsters more of an advantage against your character but that's it. Oh asks you suffer more corruption as tiff plus through endless hoards of wolves and giant spiders

05-16-2014 12:51 AM
Senior Member
<biomatter> summoners still summon completely stupid amounts of critters
<biomatter> i've been fighting wolves for like 5 minutes now
<biomatter> it's great for my weapon skills, but i haven't seen the werewolf in ages

05-16-2014 09:33 AM
Senior Member
It's not hard to just get out of the werewolf's LoS (or even off the level) while you fight his summons, so that he stops summoning more. Never takes anywhere near 5 minutes - more like about 30 seconds.

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'.


ps. I kinda concede that I'm in the minority here, and most ADOM players want things to be easier.

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