Reserved MP for summons

[DukeVonBathrobe]

After reading about the summoning change to allies only attacking in player LOS and the problem of summon spamming being overpowered I got thinking about a possible change.

What if summons reserved a portion of your max MP equal to the spell level? This would limit your maximum allowed summons like a cap would while involving more of a tactical decision than always summoning your most powerful combination to hit the cap. Choosing how much mana to leave yourself with for other spells or devoting yourself to more summons as a player decision, and as a change to enemy summoner behavior.

For example, could greater mummies be more limited in their ability to torment as often when they have summons out?

As a side suggestion of this, would designing around summons being permanent and "leveling" themselves until killed be a balanced proposal with a restrictive change in their cap (by an artificial cap or reserved mp)? Making them have any kind of permanence like that would also have to include changed in how abjuration works. I would propose that instead of effecting the duration of the summon it would now debuff them in some significant way. Maybe slow + stat lowering for a period of time dependent on spell power?

Anyways, as summoners stand now I find very little motivation to play them. I think a change that allowed for more tactical decision making and permanent summons with names who become more powerful would add a bit of diversity to the play style. Similar to the Beogh experience but with significantly less micro management equipment switching tedium.

Oh and if keeping the status quo plus summon cap is the preferred solution then I would suggest either having it dependent on your summoning skill, or average of summoning and spellcasting. Seems quite simple if it caps at 27, assuming that 3 level 9 summons are strong enough to keep it worthwhile.

[galehar]

If sustain casting goes in, this would make sense. Buffs and summons are both duration based spells and they would both consumate maxMP. I don't think a monster counterpart is needed or would make any sense. Monsters don't have MP anyway.
Personally, I don't like the idea of semi-permanent summons which level-up. I'm very sceptical regarding the feasibility of the idea and I have yet to see a really polished proposal about it. Also, we already have permanent allies. I think it's better that summon stays differentiated from permanent allies by being... temporary.

[DukeVonBathrobe]

Fair enough, my knowledge about how monsters and their AI functions with regard to abilities is limited. From a design perspective I prefer the idea of player and monster mechanics working similarly as to give the design transparency and improve the player's understanding without having to reference outside sources. Granted, if monster design doesn't currently follow that philosophy then that level of overhaul is not worth the sole gain of mp system transparency.

I guess my question then is why do people prefer duration based summons over semi-permanence. Obviously I have stated that it holds my interest less, as from a play perspective it is "overpower and swarm things for half xp" rather than protecting limited assets that you form a connection to.

Maybe the half xp should be done away with when limiting the power of summoning through a cap?

[Sar]

If sustain casting goes in, this would make sense. Buffs and summons are both duration based spells and they would both consumate maxMP.

Looks like a pretty transparent solution instead of some arbitrary summon limits, also forces to choose between mana spent on buffs, summons and mana left in case an escape is necessary.

I also remember some proposal to make demon summoning different, something about summoning circles, was it ultimately rejected or is it on hold now?

[galehar]

From a design perspective I prefer the idea of player and monster mechanics working similarly as to give the design transparency

Haha, that's a good one! Seriously, there are a lot of disymmetry between monsters and the player and we're fine with it. Sometimes, it's better to have some unification, but this isn't a design goal in itself. Regarding summoning, I think monster summoning is fine, so changes and balance need to focus on the player side.

I guess my question then is why do people prefer duration based summons over semi-permanence.

Haven't I already answered that? To differentiate summons from permanent allies. If you want to "protect limited assets that you form a connection to", play Beogh or Yred.

[dpeg]

To emphasise what galehar said: pre-DCSS crawl used to have no permanent (or almost permanent) allies apart from zombies/skeletons, and it was good. It is partly my fault that now there are some (I am guilty for Beogh and TSO, but there is also Yredelemnul, for example). The problem is that permanent allies are just begging to cause all kinds of balance problems, and inevitably they do. Now, I won't argue for removal of Beogh's orcs, TSO's daeaves etc. but getting (semi-)permanent allies from spells is clearly out of the question.

The point of summoning is that you enhance your combat toolkit by being able to create someone on your side, on the spot. This is one major difference to the other allies like zombies: those are reliably around but cannot be created at will. The other one is that the summoner should be limited by MP, just like the conjurer. This doesn't always work well (hence the talk about nerfs) but it's a crucial difference to other forms of allies.

[Choko5]

To emphasise what galehar said: pre-DCSS crawl used to have no permanent (or almost permanent) allies apart from zombies/skeletons, and it was good. It is partly my fault that now there are some (I am guilty for Beogh and TSO, but there is also Yredelemnul, for example). The problem is that permanent allies are just begging to cause all kinds of balance problems, and inevitably they do. Now, I won't argue for removal of Beogh's orcs, TSO's daeaves etc. but getting (semi-)permanent allies from spells is clearly out of the question.

The point of summoning is that you enhance your combat toolkit by being able to create someone on your side, on the spot. This is one major difference to the other allies like zombies: those are reliably around but cannot be created at will. The other one is that the summoner should be limited by MP, just like the conjurer. This doesn't always work well (hence the talk about nerfs) but it's a crucial difference to other forms of allies.

I think we need some clarification of a concept here: Permanent. Zombies are permanent, they don't need any cost to maintain. Minions that have names and gains XP are not necessarily be so. They may have some cost when being summoned, being maintained, or to be under control. They can be summoned at will on one's side, on the spot. Thus, they're different from zombies/god gifted allies.

[Lasty]

If at some point in the future summoning starts reserving MP, how does that work with summon spells that summon multiple monsters? Do you have to wait for every last butterfly to die before you get your 1 MP back, or every scorpion to get back 4? Will you be able to prematurely send away a summon to recover max mana? What about hostile summons -- do you reserve mana to pay for those jerks, too? That seems like adding insult to injury.

[DukeVonBathrobe]

I guess my question then is why do people prefer duration based summons over semi-permanence.

Haven't I already answered that? To differentiate summons from permanent allies. If you want to "protect limited assets that you form a connection to", play Beogh or Yred.

That actually didn't answer my question. I was looking for why the mechanic of purely temporary allies is more enjoyable versus semi-permanence. If players generally prefer one mechanic over another I would imagine focusing on improving that play style would be a better course for development.

To emphasise what galehar said: pre-DCSS crawl used to have no permanent (or almost permanent) allies apart from zombies/skeletons, and it was good. It is partly my fault that now there are some (I am guilty for Beogh and TSO, but there is also Yredelemnul, for example). The problem is that permanent allies are just begging to cause all kinds of balance problems, and inevitably they do. Now, I won't argue for removal of Beogh's orcs, TSO's daeaves etc. but getting (semi-)permanent allies from spells is clearly out of the question.

The point of summoning is that you enhance your combat toolkit by being able to create someone on your side, on the spot. This is one major difference to the other allies like zombies: those are reliably around but cannot be created at will. The other one is that the summoner should be limited by MP, just like the conjurer. This doesn't always work well (hence the talk about nerfs) but it's a crucial difference to other forms of allies.

If you think balance for summoning semi permanent allies is either impossible or too much work to balance then fair enough. Personally most of my experience with allies is TSO, Beogh, or Trog as playing summoner spellcasters always felt tedious to me. Devoting MP for a limited number of permanent allies to summon interested me for making a melee hybrid using something other than low to moderate buff spells. To be fair, TSO angels and Trog summons are very very good in the extended endgame. My orcish army got positively slaughtered on the assault on Zot:5 in my singular HOPr game. Very enjoyable however walking in with 11 warlords and walking out with 3.

And my HOPr experience is what I am basing permanent ally balance off of. I never took them into endgame because I decided I was just going to 3 rune it. You get a ton of orcs, and keeping them all alive is actually rather difficult towards the endgame. Dragons on the other hand may be way tougher as allies. I have never cared to get a summoner far enough to get that spell castable. Maybe I will attempt to 15 rune a summoner so I have more first hand experience with the current situation.

If at some point in the future summoning starts reserving MP, how does that work with summon spells that summon multiple monsters? Do you have to wait for every last butterfly to die before you get your 1 MP back, or every scorpion to get back 4? Will you be able to prematurely send away a summon to recover max mana? What about hostile summons -- do you reserve mana to pay for those jerks, too? That seems like adding insult to injury.

On a first glance I would say for multi-summon spells you get back 1 max mp per each one killed until the last. You wouldn't be able to go over your normal unreserved max obviously. Hostile would remove the reservation of mp. However, returning your max mp back would not give you any more immediately usable mp, just effect the maximum it could regenerate to. Alternatively you could argue that the reservation of mp is just dependent on the duration of the summon regardless of whether it dies or not. Not sure how harsh that would actually be.