Caster quest/farm efficency.

oozu1234 said:
I thought about that after i posted it lol and the only thing i can think of is on multi pulls is a. they try to root it and it summons someone continuously or b. it runs rampant and murders everyone. only way to balance something like that out i guess would be to remove summon and add root immunity (if its not already there) but then you'd be back at square one anyways. \

But i mean really most non dungeon places unless its 65+ content dont summon anyways. Dungeons were made for a band of adventurers to go and kill things, not gandalf the wizard to go and slay all by himself.
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There is no need for root immunity either. IMO, a careful 6 caster group should be able to go into bloodfires and root CC and successfully farm the zone. Even with all dps and no heal/tank, they wont be much better off than a typical group for a couple reasons: Stanrdard groups get a fair chunk of free DPS from damage shields and meeles are better at exp than casters most of the time because they never require medding. The all caster group is going to have to spend time and mana root CCing, and be ultra careful with pulls since there are places where you get 7+ mobs if not careful.

Think back to the kite group at EW orcs. Was it really more efficent than EW orc groups with a tank/healer? Not in my experience.

There would probably be some instances where the all caster group is more efficient, and I see nothing wrong with that. There will also still be places where the standard group is more efficient. It would add some nice variety to the game, as well as the freedom and player ingenuity that made EQ so much fun. Its not going to be easy to take a 6 caster group to close cooridors indoor zones with hard hitting mobs, and a group who can do it successfully deserves some good exp.

If it turns out that people can suddenly go get double the exp they could normally get at a given tier, then that would be a problem needing addressing, but the only problem I forsee is a solo necro with insidious infection kiting an entire zone. Outside of that scenario, caster mana pool and mana regen limits how many mobs they can handle and how fast they can kill them, and its pretty self balancing.
 
oozu1234 said:
But i mean really most non dungeon places unless its 65+ content dont summon anyways. Dungeons were made for a band of adventurers to go and kill things, not gandalf the wizard to go and slay all by himself.
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A lot of outdoor zones actually do summon. Anything gandalf the wizard would be able to solo, healer/meele duos have been farming for years. There are already pleanty of mechanics in game that will make kiting impossible in certain places. (erratic strikes, nuking mobs, rooting mobs, runspeed immune mobs, etc)

Old EQ didn't have group exp bonuses nearly as lucrative as sod does, and in general the caster vs meele balance was much different from SoD. Solo casters (or 6 caster groups) at the time actually were the most efficent form of exp by far. The situation in SoD is very different(except maybe insidious infection as i mentioned before, which can be dealt with any number of ways, if it turns out to be OP). Summoning is really unnecessary on most non raid mobs.

Think of the zones that currently dont have summoning mobs. Casters CAN solo. Casters can form groups of 6 and exp together. They will solo far slower than a meele/healer duo (including the ungrouped duo that just heals the meele between kills, yielding superior exp than a caster can get), or you can just take a typical group to the same zone and get the best exp of all.

There are a ton of benefits typical groups receive that will naturally make them superior in most situations:
A)DS damage, ever parsed a tank with a decent DS mass pulling mobs? they are generally #1 dps in the group
B)Meele dps never have to med and through most of the game they have higher sustained dps than any caster
C)An all caster group has no heals, so their play has to be far more careful and precise to avoid deaths(if you add in heals your dps is suddenly worse than a standard group)
D)Caster groups are spending time and mana CCing, kiting, etc


There may turn out to be certain areas or class/spell/ability combinations that are too powerful and lucrative, but I really don't think there would be that many, and they wouldn't be so hard to handle on a case by case basis (add occasional summoners, or runspeed immune, or mobs that nuke, etc)
 
As an enchanter, Im pretty sure i can solo things that summon way before any other caster could, and most likely before any melee/healer duo could. You have to take into account that casters can solo for exp better on anything that doesnt summon basicly naked alot better than a fresh 65 tank/healer duo. But i am liking the "get rid of summoning mobs" thing, it would make people want enchanters more for caster only groups and change some peoples attitudes of Enc=Useless buffbot. Just my 2cents.
 
Also chiming in, if it can be feared, mezzed, or charmed, necromancers can solo it regardless of summoning. Mages might be able to duo it with a healer (or a necro / enchanter), pets get pretty astoundingly beefy these days.

Poor wizards :/, can't you do anything right?
 
I mean, I'm not out here just to say something like, 'let's drop the hoop to seven feet so everyone can dunk.' No. I'm also here trying to say, 'Everyone can already dunk but you.'
 
Loxo said:
I mean, I'm not out here just to say something like, 'let's drop the hoop to seven feet so everyone can dunk.' No. I'm also here trying to say, 'Everyone can already dunk but you.'
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Damn...

In response to that guy earlier talking about the "what if summoning was removed then you had 4 casters grouping together somewhere like FR" I have to echo the responses about how melee/tanks/healers can already do this so what's the real problem.
 
Yes, necros and mages and enchanters are better off than wizards. And maybe a t12+ mage with their new pet can suddenly duo as well or better than many other combos, but there is still a huge range of content that a meele/healer can duo with ease when a caster would get annihilated (or have a much harder time).

The point here is not what is possible, it is ease and efficiency. Removing summoning from most exp areas would just make it such that casters can achieve the same things w/o outside help that meeles can. There would be instances where casters are suddenly superior (namely ultra low tier, where there already is very little summoning). There will also remain areas where a meele/healer is more efficient (tight spaces and mass add situations).

I'm not even opposed to having some exp/quest areas being impossible to kite, especially if there are then other areas where casters tend to have an easier time than meele. What I really dont like is that in general casters (and yes wizards in particular) have a much harder time completing the large majority of quests in sod, many of which the community in general tends to expect you to do on your own.
 
Tevinter said:
As an enchanter, Im pretty sure i can solo things that summon way before any other caster could, and most likely before any melee/healer duo could. You have to take into account that casters can solo for exp better on anything that doesnt summon basicly naked alot better than a fresh 65 tank/healer duo. But i am liking the "get rid of summoning mobs" thing, it would make people want enchanters more for caster only groups and change some peoples attitudes of Enc=Useless buffbot. Just my 2cents.
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Wouldn't one concern with this be that chanter mez CC would be a lot less important on mobs that can now be root CC'd by most classes in the game, though?
 
I guess I didn't really convey it too well, but I do agree that wizards in particular have the shaft when it comes to completing quest content that's generally expected to be done on your own time.

I'm not so sure removing summoning would be a great way to go about it though, as suddenly a caster or bard with any room to kite would jump around to the godly end of the spectrum.

It always seemed like the grand scheme that made all this work so far was teaming up with someone, even if you don't share quest lines, will always be faster than either one of you soloing/duoing. Being expected to do something on your own time doesn't mean you have to do it on your own.
 
Slagar said:
Wouldn't one concern with this be that chanter mez CC would be a lot less important on mobs that can now be root CC'd by most classes in the game, though?
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Mezzing is always going to be superior, and I think requiring mez CC is one of the worse aspects of this game. That is one of the big reasons that so much 6 man content is so selective. Bards/necros are THE on tier EF dps because they can mez. I think it would be a good thing to open that role up to other classes. If there are encounters intended to require mez, they can continue summoning, but I think requiring mez outside of the raid game is kind of silly.
 
Loxo said:
I'm not so sure removing summoning would be a great way to go about it though, as suddenly a caster or bard with any room to kite would jump around to the godly end of the spectrum.

It always seemed like the grand scheme that made all this work so far was teaming up with someone, even if you don't share quest lines, will always be faster than either one of you soloing/duoing. Being expected to do something on your own time doesn't mean you have to do it on your own.
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I've explained thoroughly in this thread why casters and bards would not suddenly become god mode. Parse your exp/hour in any current non-summoning zone, any decent group will make it look like a joke, and 90% of the time a meele with an out of group healer can do better exp/hour. Caster would have better options for soloing than they currently do, but it will still never be close to a full group.

Summoning is just a holdover that was somewhat needed in old EQ, but not so much in SoD. I'd bet the only reason its so widely used is that it gets automatically added to mobs of a certain level, and Devs didn't know or bother to remove it.

"teaming up with someone, even if you don't share quest lines, will always be faster than either one of you soloing/duoing."

I don't know where you pulled this from, but its entirely and completely wrong. When it comes to EXP, groups are always superior. When it comes to questing, its almost always more efficient to work alone.

Did you read all the posts in this thread? Do you play this game? I'm honestly not meaning to be mean or anything its just that you don't seem to understand how SoD works very well.
 
Talking about bards is kind of a non-issue because they are already godly. If you can reliably mez and/or stun the mob it doesn't matter if it summons. The only difference this would make for bards is speeding the process up.
 
Bards are awesome, but once you get 65 and some half decent gear, the exp from kiting is bad. Bards have the worst mana regen, and their free dots are not very high dps.
 
Silosobi said:
Bards are awesome, but once you get 65 and some half decent gear, the exp from kiting is bad. Bards have the worst mana regen, and their free dots are not very high dps.
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Okay cool but all I was saying is that they can already solo summoning mobs if they can mez it.
 
Ok, bards and casters receive corresponding adjustments from their current place on the helpless -> godly line. You got me, I somehow indirectly associated bards with not already being godly.

I honestly would have thought out of group healing for a melee was cheating.

In a zone where the mobs are high enough level to summon, bringing more is usually better though isn't it? I mean EF, cata, FR, planar trash, even just FG efreets, unless you have some really ballin' characters the mobs in these zones take forever to kill with a duo or solo. Add one dps though and it's an exp group.
 
I mean, summoning mobs that are not raid associated mobs, that are required for casters to complete quests they are generally expected to do on their own. Maybe if you were more specific with which quest and which mobs you need at this point in time someone could help you, like a friend or guildy. In return you could help them with something they can't kill on their own.
 
Loxo said:
I mean, summoning mobs that are not raid associated mobs, that are required for casters to complete quests they are generally expected to do on their own. Maybe if you were more specific with which quest and which mobs you need at this point in time someone could help you, like a friend or guildy. In return you could help them with something they can't kill on their own.
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Yeah I don't know if I agree with the crazy across the board removal of summoning mobs but making it easier for casters + whatever to duo quest mobs or exp mobs here and there that a melee/tank + healer can do no problem? I doubt it would cause any harm. I think Remnants has a pretty good balance with a glut of exp mobs not summoning then you have the undead and the droppable loot guys for the group end of things.
 
@Rorne I was mostly agreeing with you, and just responding to the comment about bards being super godly if mobs stopped summoning.

@Loxo Doing the parts of quests that involve highly challenging raid/group mobs IS more efficent in groups, but the majority of questing is travel, rare spawns/drops/etc in usually trivial or at least solo/duoable areas.

I'd say 95% of quest conent is most efficent to do solo and 5% you need or are better off grouped.

I can and have asked/recieved help, and given in return. It is just very frustrating and I feel lame/dumb asking for help constantly on hours and hours of questing that all my friends completed on their own.

The quest thing is a big part of the issue to me, but I honestly believe removing summoning from 95%+ of non raid mobs would be beneficial. It would open the option for more varied and diverse group makeup and styles. It would make groups easier to form since you dont always need to fill the heal/tank role.

One of the things I really loved about EQ was the freedom of the world. No invisible walls, no mobs that i cant attack w/o any reason. Having half of the random mundane mobs of the world summon you just seems weird. It should be reserved for powerful magical creatures (or at least the ones deemed necessary for balance)
 
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Basically the overuse of summoning in old EQ was to enforce "The Vision"™ where the sadistic developers thought it was good idea that you had to have certain classes in your group or you were just not doing anything at high level. It was why clerics were the only acceptable healers, warriors the only acceptable tanks, enchanters absolutely required for most content. That's why pretty much every mob level 51+ summoned in old EQ, so that the warrior had to take the hits, the cleric had to heal with the only good heal spells in the game, and the enchanter did the mez thing. Doesn't really make much sense here given that 2 other classes have been made viable healers, paladins and SKs made viable tanks, etc.

It's all good and well to ask people for help on these quests, but it's pretty lame when you have to camp summoning mobs for hours upon hours to get some of those drops that some can easily duo with the right classes due to the summoning mechanic not being harsh on melee.
 
Zapple said:
Doesn't really make much sense here given that 2 other classes have been made viable healers, paladins and SKs made viable tanks. on-tier necros and bards mez better then enchanters. etc, etc .
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Enchanter balancing thread locked.



O RLY?
 
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