The Tavern

Player summoning got recently heavily nerfed for a good reason. However, monster summoners can still employ "tactics" that are the same or as/more stupid as hiding behind a dragon meatshield 4 tiles thick. This is, in my opinion, stupid. Popcorn summons are not interesting in any way because 1) non-threatening monsters are non-exciting, 2) you don't gain anything by killing them (no exp, no items, no piety IIRC), and 3) it can take A LOT of time to kill those popcorn summons especially as a melee character. I'm sure I've forgotten many stupid summoning monters so please no "trololol, you included monster X in your list, but excluded monster Y, lolzy" replies.

Non-popcorn summons have problems too: If that ancient lich pops out a couple of fiends, you teleport or haste + cBlink and come back later. However, at least there is the danger of getting smashed if you play very poorly.

I think the main problem some people, and I, have with summons is that fighting summons is time spend for no gain and it makes the game experience of summoning heavy areas/situations drag really badly. So let's change that, please! Here is my list:

The following monsters/uniques should not summon AT ALL (some of these monsters need to be removed/re-flavoured completely after this change):

Treant
Spirit wolf (a wolf that continues to summon even AFTER killing it, c'mon!!)
Deep elf summoner (stupid popcorn is stupid)
Deep elf mage (summon imp, seriously?)
Vampire mage
Elemental wellspring (I think this brainfart has been discussed enough in other threads)
Ynoxinul (this is a serious buff to players since ufetubi are the number 1 killer in pandemonium...not)
Shadow demons (by the time you meet them, you will be able to escape if something nasty pops out and on the other hand, popcorn summons are awful and these monsters are way too common in Pan and Hells)
Neqoxec (popcorn)
Dryad
Nergalle
Eustachio (no more rats, please)
Ilsuiw (semi-popcorn)
Murray (the place where he generates, Vestibule, makes the summonings especially annoying)
Rakshasa (dealing with one can take so very long even if you take zero damage)
Curse toe (mushrooms + toe, ha ha)

Following monsters should be considered as well although I'm not as sure about these:

Mummy priest
Greater mummy

One could argue that in case of mummies, for example, semi-popcorns serve a purpose of blocking your acces to kill to the really dangerous "main" enemy. I just wish that there was a better way than a half a screenful of undead.

Silver statues and curse skulls can just be ignored so I won't include them in this list. Ice statues summon and are used in ice portal vaults. Not sure what to do with those. You can remove their summoning as well, I wouldn't cry for them. I think Frances is fine eventhough a summoner. Kind of an introduction to demons for new players.

Thanks for reading!

This sounds about right to me, and would help to reintroduce parity between player and monster summoning. Though to be honest, I hate the summoning cap, if only because Summon Butterflies is crap now.

I'd argue against neqoxecs and Ilsiuw. For neqs, that's just because I love when they summon something instead of doing any of their other abilities, and on occasion the meat shields ARE deadly if only because they give it more time to eat your tiny troll brain. For Ilsiuw, the psuedo-silence water elementals inflict in trunk makes them much more dangerous than they used to be.

trololol, you included shadow demons in your list, but excluded boggarts, lolzy.

Seriously though, I somewhat agree with you. Monster summoning right now is a bit stupid, but I don't think just removing it from almost everything that can do it is the right way to go.

I'd rather see all of the summoners get some sort of smite targeted ability so their popcorn actually means something, and summoned fiends either removed or made a special case that won't unsummon to prevent the main tactic for them being just running away and waiting.

But part of the problem, as I see it, would still remain intact. The thing is, on many of of the monsters above, I don't want to make summonings more relevant. If that popcorn or not-popcorn surrounds you instead of the monster, it will still, on worst cases, take a horrible long time to kill for no gain whatsoever. I don't like to fight endless waves of summons because there is no gain in doing so. I don't want to see all monster summoning go but I guess I would like to see the majority of monsters who do it removed (or reflavouring them or whatever).

What if summons simply didn't block movement or LOS, they could surround/attack you, but being semi-phantasmal, you could simply attack the summoner (I think if this worked both ways it would eliminate the main problem I see with summons)

This makes summons into an offensive spell (Basically a strange sort of damage over time), but removes the blocking from the equation. I think you should still be able to attack them (with control-direction) to get rid of them, and Monster AI should occasionally take a swing at one to provide distraction-stabs. But they would no longer provide a "meat shield" or any measure of safety.

Interesting idea. Maybe someone can further develop this. However, I don't feel like fighting orange rats nor imps in the elven halls -phantasmal or not.

I'd disagree that it takes a horribly long time in the first place, honestly. Popcorn usually dies in one hit, getting to the caster never takes too long.

Unless you're saying that taking out the rest of the horde afterwords takes too long, which I agree with. There's another proposal on here to have a summoner's minions all disappear when the summoner dies, which I think would be a much better solution.

Summon fodder can be tiresome and although I agree with most the list, I disagree with a few (most uniques and cursed toes) and I think everyone will have their opinions.
It's probably better to implement mechanic for monster summons to reduce popcorn, like the other proposal recently mentioned

Maybe so. The thing that I'm a bit worried about is that the development in 0.13 has gone, to some extent, to the opposite direction of what I'd like to see. As you can notice, many of the IMO annoying monsters are new additions (forest monsters) or IMO bad changes to the existing ones (elf mage). So this is also kind of a statement from my part since 0.13 is a version in development. I'm sure that many people agree with me on that, at the very least, we don't want to see a lot of new summoning monsters.

I entirely agree, I would even like summoning to be something rare.(like "only few exceptional guys can perform secret dark rituals of summoning(annoyingly numerous weak) creatures from other dimensions" or something)