Poll: Why do Korean MMOs hate summoner classes?
- Thread starter Xskill
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Your poll seems a little broken; it currently says 'M' or 'No!'.
Anyway, I imagine the summoners are quite hard to program and balance. You have to program in pet commands to control your minions, which is annoying if it's just for one class. You also have to program in friendly buffs that can land on AI monsters, but not enemy AI monsters and sometimes not AI monsters summoned by other people. More lines to write, more tags to check every time a spell is cast. Then you have to have a graphics engine that is capable of supporting all those little imps and goblins, quite a big ask for a free to play game. I mentioned balance earlier too, the programmers have to balance a team of 4-10 summoned nasties, along with making the summoner/necromancer reasonably interesting to play (nobody would play them if they summoned 10 monsters then did nothing, they need to be active if not nessiceraly powerful.
That's all for the programmers though; as a general rule I, as a player, do enjoy playing a summoner class. In Anarchy Online I always liked the Meta-Physisist (if that's spelt right it's a miracle) or the Engineer and in EVE Online I play with a very drone-based loadout (PvM, for reasons obvious to anyone else who's played EVE).
Anyway, I imagine the summoners are quite hard to program and balance. You have to program in pet commands to control your minions, which is annoying if it's just for one class. You also have to program in friendly buffs that can land on AI monsters, but not enemy AI monsters and sometimes not AI monsters summoned by other people. More lines to write, more tags to check every time a spell is cast. Then you have to have a graphics engine that is capable of supporting all those little imps and goblins, quite a big ask for a free to play game. I mentioned balance earlier too, the programmers have to balance a team of 4-10 summoned nasties, along with making the summoner/necromancer reasonably interesting to play (nobody would play them if they summoned 10 monsters then did nothing, they need to be active if not nessiceraly powerful.
That's all for the programmers though; as a general rule I, as a player, do enjoy playing a summoner class. In Anarchy Online I always liked the Meta-Physisist (if that's spelt right it's a miracle) or the Engineer and in EVE Online I play with a very drone-based loadout (PvM, for reasons obvious to anyone else who's played EVE).
I don't really like to play a summoner character because then I would have to rely on npcs to fight for me. If the ai is bad then this could end horribly. Even if the ai isn't bad, I would still prefer to play one character and do all the fighting and roleplaying myself.
I use to play Ragnarok Online back in the day, probably the only Korean MMO I've played. But yeah there wasn't any real summoning going on in it from what I remember.
As for the summoner class, I actually really like it. In Diablo 2 the Necromancer was usually the first class I went with whenever I started playing again as it was really safe, before I would move on to making a Sorceress for power.
I love how it gives you strength in numbers, a meat shield from enemies, and the ability to gang up on people. As long as there are ways and skills for you to still be present in the combat personally, so you feel as if you are leading an army into battle, not watching other people do stuff.
As for the summoner class, I actually really like it. In Diablo 2 the Necromancer was usually the first class I went with whenever I started playing again as it was really safe, before I would move on to making a Sorceress for power.
I love how it gives you strength in numbers, a meat shield from enemies, and the ability to gang up on people. As long as there are ways and skills for you to still be present in the combat personally, so you feel as if you are leading an army into battle, not watching other people do stuff.
They are incredibly hard to balance mostly. The coding part that Scabadus brought up isn't that much of an issue. The best example I can think of is look at Pathfinder. That summoner class is extremely broken. They only have one summoned creature. Think of ones that allow for multiple summoned creatures.
Well, look at Summoner classes in RPGs. Total glass cannons that can change the tide of battle for the most part, right? Its a terrible fit for MMORPGS; a class deticated to dropping nukes would be terrible at simple grindy quests, and they'd be near useless for party play unless they were fighting an instanced Big Bad.
Unless of course, you turn them into "The pet class." And in that case, it should be left up to things better suited for classes with actual pets.
Unless of course, you turn them into "The pet class." And in that case, it should be left up to things better suited for classes with actual pets.