Remove the Summon Monster Timer

[Akhad_Durn]

I'll be happy if my Summoned Monster doesn't get bored and wander off, or get stuck on a rock, or decide he doesn't feel like coming through the door.

I stopped even carrying the spell as there is just no point.

Yep... I'd actually summon the Earth Ele if he wouldn't go brain dead after attcking just one thing.

[dameron]

I wouldn't be so opposed to fewer summons if they weren't so **** fragile.

Where are the really good summons like "Mordenkainen's sword" and the various "Bigby's Hand" spells?

What I'd love to see is the ability to "drive" dominated or summoned creatures around, switching PoV with them for a time.

Even if you had to park your caster that would be really cool tech.

You could do things like summon a "Wizard's Eye". How cool would that be?

And it would start to make things like "Magic Jar" and even "Clairvoyance" possible.

Then you could even "summon" an astral form for "Astral Projection".

C'mon, gimme!

[DrAwkward]

But in that case there's really no problem, since I can already summon the thing once.

Absolutely, in that case. I'm just saying it might be funny to have one of every type of charmed monster, but the graphics engine may not be amused.
I'm hoping that once they get multiple summons hashed out, we might get "animate dead". mmmmmm zombie army.

[Riorik]

And no more monsters turning on you when your party when you get disconnected or dispelled.

Tertiary objectives would also include changing the Summon Monster spell line into spell selectors, with various types of summons. I've got a couple of other ideas, but I can't post them lest they turn into "promises".

Now THAT would rock. It's nice to know that you can at least seriously consider this as a coding option - eventually - possibly - maybe.

[Aesop]

A rework of how summoned monsters interact with their masters is very high on my "things to do" list.

/kiss

I knew I liked you for a reason

Aesop

[Gypsy_Mouse]

And no more monsters turning on you when your party when you get disconnected or dispelled.

Was this already put in the game?

I did an elite Purge the Fallen Shrine run last week and one of the casters summoned a bezekira that was still around after the end fight.
Caster looted and recalled.
I was the last one to leave and started panicking when I realized the caster was gone and the cat was standing next to me.
But it stayed nice and never attacked (though its breath smelled fishy).

[Luthen]

And no more monsters turning on you when your party when you get disconnected or dispelled.

Tertiary objectives would also include changing the Summon Monster spell line into spell selectors, with various types of summons. I've got a couple of other ideas, but I can't post them lest they turn into "promises".

Hey bud... we're DDOers. Don't you know we're used to stuff that's broken?

[Sheezgame]

Are summoned monsters any use at higher levels or do they die pretty instantly?

If they are not very useful then intelligent mobs will be fun for a while but not very useful at later levels unless there is some way to increase summoned levels. (i.e heighten on my lvl1 monster should make it useful at level16) ? I'm not sure how this works in PnP.


Other than that it sounds like it would be good to have 2 categories of summoned monsters. 'Intelligent Summons' where you get to be more in control of a small number of summoned mobs, say up to 3 at once. And 'Stupid Summons' where you can cast a higher number of the type of creature without being in control of it.

These could effectively be two separate types of spells all together, allowing you to have a 'smart' pet that you can order around, but also have an army of skeleton warrior. Kinda the best of both worlds.

Since the 'stupid' system is already in place, and you are working on the 'intelligent' system, it seems like this could be feasible.

Really not sure how it works in PnP though, anyone got some feedback on pets in PnP? Can you order your pets around, can you have army's of skeletons fighting for you?

[CrazySamaritan]

Really not sure how it works in PnP though, anyone got some feedback on pets in PnP? Can you order your pets around, can you have army's of skeletons fighting for you?

In PnP, you can summon creatures that are slightly weaker than the enemies you would be fighting (not true in DDO).

You can summon more per spell, but more weaker monsters instead of the stronger monsters (aka; level 3SM gets three Celestial Dogs). This is not currently implemented in DDO.

If you speak the creature's language, or can otherwise give it orders, it will follow them to the best of it's ability. Language is not implemented in DDO.

Summons have a limit life-span. (correctly implemented, duration is not correct to match with cool-down)

If the summon is the target of a dispell, or in an anti-magic field, it is dismissed (dismissed means gone, not attacking the party).




To correctly code the dismissal, the 'charm' effect the summon is born with needs to have a rider on it that triggers the monster's "go away" animation when the duration expires, whenever it is dispelled.

[ViVid7th]

What this also breaks into is a command interface for Charm and Dominate as well. Even better would be actually putting in the difference between the spells.

[SkyCry]

Personally I'd prefer a bar (similar to spell effects bar) with all the controlled creatures as buttons:
- Pressing charmed creature button uncharms it
- Pressing summoned creature button unsummons it

Would help with a lot of game break situations too.
Alternatively give each icon a right-mouse-button menu with orders.

Oh and I'd like to be able to give summoned and charmed creature an order to "disable" targets:
- Dog/wolf/cat would trip casters
- Earth elemental would earthgrab casters and tanks

That's pretty much the best thing the summoned can do atm (at least for us, squishies), so at least make them do it more often.

[Sheezgame]

Hopefully they check out how WoW handles pet commands/abilities - they actually did that part pretty well. It would handle your list of desires easily.

[sirgog]

What about being able to name our summons? I've always wanted to be able to name them and have it show above their head. Esp, since this is something I got used to doing with the Master Mind in City of Villains.

I'm not a fan of running around with Rover the Celestial Dog, ZOMG!!!! the Fiendish Scorpion, helpiamscaredofthespiders the Fiendish Spider, KIT-TEH!!! the Bezekira, Toasty! the Efreeti, Nosepicker the Fiendish Troll and PwNeRiZeR the Large Earth Elemental.

So please, no.

[Ghoste]

But now we've got parties full of people summoning Dense Earth Elementals like there's no tomorrow. I've been in parties where we've been completely surrounded by the things. Not to mention this little video.

You obviously weren't reading party chat while that video was being made.

Player 1: did anyone else notice it just suddenly got laggy?
Several other players: yeah...
Player 2: (standing on other lever tower) you might want to ask Ghoste about that...
Ghoste: Me? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Player 3: (enters door on bottom side) ***? Who just cast curse on me?
Player 4: Mummy rot? How'd I get that?
Party Leader: I'm sorry guys, I really must apologize for this. I've never seen this "undead bug" before. I have no idea what's causing the quest to bug out like this.
Player 2: (sends /tell to Ghoste) ROFLMFAO!!!
Ghoste: /r I can't believe he's still thinks it's a bug!

[sirgog]

You obviously weren't reading party chat while that video was being made.

Player 1: did anyone else notice it just suddenly got laggy?
Several other players: yeah...
Player 2: (standing on other lever tower) you might want to ask Ghoste about that...
Ghoste: Me? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Player 3: (enters door on bottom side) ***? Who just cast curse on me?
Player 4: Mummy rot? How'd I get that?
Party Leader: I'm sorry guys, I really must apologize for this. I've never seen this "undead bug" before. I have no idea what's causing the quest to bug out like this.
Player 2: (sends /tell to Ghoste) ROFLMFAO!!!
Ghoste: /r I can't believe he's still thinks it's a bug!

Laughing so hard I started crying.

Never realised you did that in a PUG!

[Ghoste]

Laughing so hard I started crying.

Never realised you did that in a PUG!

I started doing it while invited on guild runs for Beyond the Mind's Eye. It became a tradition for our two guilds. Did it a few times in PUGs. One time was particularly funny. A friend from BTME sent me a tell about the raid and said to make sure to bring along the mummies. I got a guildie to join me and we both stocked up on a bunch of create undead scrolls and were being very careful about creating the mummies when nobody was looking.

Anywhere there was a ladder or a pit or someplace we could create them without them following us, we would leave hordes of them all over. Took one cleric 5 minutes to get up one ladder because I had targeted the spell right at the bottom, and right at the top so there was a bunch of mummies in stealth mode blocking the ladder. They were aggro'd on me as I watched from above and waited for the cleric to finally figure out what was blocking his path.

The party leader was constantly apologizing over voice chat for the "undead bug", and asking if anybody was familiar with it.

[sirgog]

Can you post a new video on Youtube of it when you next pull that prank on a PUG? Any quest will do.