stellarmind said:i revert my choice of a summoning stone. this game doesn't have instanced dungeons not to mention the design is starkingly different. i agree with tanix. let them all suffer. only the strong and dedicated will gain loot and glory. oh boy i can't wait to join on a pvp server in this game. pvp in a dungeon. pvp at bosses. we are going to be so unproductive it'll be so much fun.
Well, to each thier own, I know some liked that kind of play in EQ (though some got tired of lack of progress in raiding due to it). Me personally, I like basic PvE, some very difficult and long based play that I can sink into. I had enough of that PvP chaos when I played MUDs back in the 80/90's.
@Nephele
They did this to an extent with The Hole. Never changed camps at all, nor did it make groups move around. Only the design of the dungeon will force people to move around, not named mobs, and even then you will still have sections camped off by groups. So I don't see how this will change anything.
I think this situation can be aleviated a bit from conversations beforehand. However I also understand that these conversations also come with some foreknowledge.
In a established group in a camp spot in a dungeon, a person knows what it takes to get there and the risks. Likewise the group members understand as they are crawling to the camp spot the time they expect to spend there. There's nothing you can do about an emergency so if one has to leave and it is a crucial spot, either the group changes tactics to handle that spot without the one class, or moves back up a bit, or waits for a replacement.
But I woud like to present the scenario of a populated dungeon, where a player can pass other groups and maybe get directions. A populated dungeon makes getting around or replacing group members easier, especially if other groups happen to be breaking up at around or near the same time.
Kind of a social dynamic, if one person in one group says they have to go to do errands, another person in another group may say- oh yeah, me too, and also make motions to leave their groups, allowing new formations.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:Nephele said: How could things be set up so that the ability to bring in a replacement to a group wasn't abused by players as a form of quick travel?
Since the purpose of this is to replace a player who is leaving, perhaps they could have a 'swap player location' feature only useable within a full group. Where as long as both players being swapped are in the same 'zone' (perhaps even within a specific range) their positions could be swapped. Perhaps with some sort of cooldown or debuff so that it can only be used by a group every so often. Perhaps also requiring the group to be 'out of combat' for a specific length of time, meaning the group would need to be in a safe location without regular spawns, or at least take a break from pulling for a few minutes to facilitate the swap. They could also code it so that a group can only use this ability after a specific length of time after the group becomes a full group. So a 'new' group wouldn't be able to swap player locations until they had been a full group for at least 15 minutes; so people can't just create a quick group just to transport people.
Just spit balling an idea.
Since this IS GOING TO HAPPEN in some form (Reconfirmed yet again in the last dev VIP stream), how can we make it a bit more challenging or meaningful compared to some modern MMO varients? Thanks Goofy for being an actual participant in the spirit of the question instead of just another neighsayer. The trick is to not fail by only considering mechanics that already exist, maybe invent a new one. Here is my spit-balling of a new but not fully fleshed out idea:
A new member arrives on his own power into the non-instanced dungeon. The group leader of a full group minus 1 member can activate an ability that is a group-effort ability. This is a channeled spell that takes the 5 members at the camp. The channeled ability makes the new member invisible or just uninteresting to mobs. All group members participating in this spell are unable to react to respawns without breaking the channeled spell effect. If each member can contribute 20% uninteresting effect/invisiblity ability then there is a 100% chance the new guy can run to your group. If respawns happen and hit one of the participants of the spell; well the effectiveness is now 80%. Respawns add the challenge to this mechanic and may force the new guy to find a quiet corner to hide in while the group responds to the repops. Being 80% invisible or uninteresting is dangerous so there is a decision to keep advancing deeper in at 80% invis while a single group member is being beat on by respawns is occuring or to hide and wait while adds are being taken care of. Now since this is an un-instanced dungeon, some of the initial mobs may be already downed by other groups and partial groups so you can at least advance partially to reduce the actual group-effect channeled ability time.
Of course the group leader can designate a tank to not participate and take on any repops, now you have 4 people in this channeled spell contributing 20% effectiveness so the new member is at best 80% uninteresting/invis and in a fair amount of danger as he jogs to your location.
This does everything to facilitate group play and ensures group play continues. It does not mitigate any risk, in fact it actually adds a bit of risk just a Different type of risk. It really does not cheapen travel time to get to the instance or the time to walk through the dungeon to the camp/group. If this is a heavily farmed dungeon then it really isn't needed as mobs will always be dead by other groups, but if its not heavily farmed then there is danger to the group while the new member has this effect on him and is jogging to the group.
Dashed said:GoofyWarriorGuy said:Nephele said: How could things be set up so that the ability to bring in a replacement to a group wasn't abused by players as a form of quick travel?
Since the purpose of this is to replace a player who is leaving, perhaps they could have a 'swap player location' feature only useable within a full group. Where as long as both players being swapped are in the same 'zone' (perhaps even within a specific range) their positions could be swapped. Perhaps with some sort of cooldown or debuff so that it can only be used by a group every so often. Perhaps also requiring the group to be 'out of combat' for a specific length of time, meaning the group would need to be in a safe location without regular spawns, or at least take a break from pulling for a few minutes to facilitate the swap. They could also code it so that a group can only use this ability after a specific length of time after the group becomes a full group. So a 'new' group wouldn't be able to swap player locations until they had been a full group for at least 15 minutes; so people can't just create a quick group just to transport people.
Just spit balling an idea.
Since this IS GOING TO HAPPEN in some form (Reconfirmed yet again in the last dev VIP stream), how can we make it a bit more challenging or meaningful compared to some modern MMO varients? Thanks Goofy for being an actual participant in the spirit of the question instead of just another neighsayer. The trick is to not fail by only considering mechanics that already exist, maybe invent a new one. Here is my spit-balling of a new but not fully fleshed out idea:
A new member arrives on his own power into the non-instanced dungeon. The group leader of a full group minus 1 member can activate an ability that is a group-effort ability. This is a channeled spell that takes the 5 members at the camp. The channeled ability makes the new member invisible or just uninteresting to mobs. All group members participating in this spell are unable to react to respawns without breaking the channeled spell effect. If each member can contribute 20% uninteresting effect/invisiblity ability then there is a 100% chance the new guy can run to your group. If respawns happen and hit one of the participants of the spell; well the effectiveness is now 80%. Respawns add the challenge to this mechanic and may force the new guy to find a quiet corner to hide in while the group responds to the repops. Being 80% invisible or uninteresting is dangerous so there is a decision to keep advancing deeper in at 80% invis while a single group member is being beat on by respawns is occuring or to hide and wait while adds are being taken care of. Now since this is an un-instanced dungeon, some of the initial mobs may be already downed by other groups and partial groups so you can at least advance partially to reduce the actual group-effect channeled ability time.
Of course the group leader can designate a tank to not participate and take on any repops, now you have 4 people in this channeled spell contributing 20% effectiveness so the new member is at best 80% uninteresting/invis and in a fair amount of danger as he jogs to your location.
This does everything to facilitate group play and ensures group play continues. It does not mitigate any risk, in fact it actually adds a bit of risk just a Different type of risk. It really does not cheapen travel time to get to the instance or the time to walk through the dungeon to the camp/group. If this is a heavily farmed dungeon then it really isn't needed as mobs will always be dead by other groups, but if its not heavily farmed then there is danger to the group while the new member has this effect on him and is jogging to the group.
While its a workable idea I feel like its overally complicated. Perhaps just a group CoH like EQ Mages had where you summon a person to the group. Some sort of casting time and maybe out of combat timer. "Must be out of combat for 60 seconds before casting. Cast takes 60 seconds. 5 people must participate in the summon. The people summoning can't move, and the person being summoned can't move, during the process. That makes it a 2 minute process, 60 seconds of which no one in the group can move, so any respawns would stop it.
It makes it long enough that it isn't super convenient. Not being in combat for 60 seconds makes it less likely to be exploited by the puller. You can tweak the actual time it takes to cast during testing, but over all this seems like a solid simple solution. If you are going to have something, then make it simple. More rules just makes it more complicated, it doesn't always make it better.
While not an overtly bad idea, Dashed, our guild would use that for scouting without risk, 100% of the time. And.. as much as I hate to say it, it does sort of kick class-defining invis/stealth in the junk a bit, being vastly superior to either. :)
It's also, potentially, an immunity bypass for mobs with Truesight/See Invis/See Stealth Dispositions as mentioned in the March 2019 newsletter.
EppE said:Dashed said:GoofyWarriorGuy said:While its a workable idea I feel like its overally complicated. Perhaps just a group CoH like EQ Mages had where you summon a person to the group. Some sort of casting time and maybe out of combat timer. "Must be out of combat for 60 seconds before casting. Cast takes 60 seconds. 5 people must participate in the summon. The people summoning can't move, and the person being summoned can't move, during the process. That makes it a 2 minute process, 60 seconds of which no one in the group can move, so any respawns would stop it.
It makes it long enough that it isn't super convenient. Not being in combat for 60 seconds makes it less likely to be exploited by the puller. You can tweak the actual time it takes to cast during testing, but over all this seems like a solid simple solution. If you are going to have something, then make it simple. More rules just makes it more complicated, it doesn't always make it better.
Like I said; it's just a knee-jerk spit-balled idea. However, I do kinda like your alternative idea as well. As long as it actually wasn't called ....CoH or group CoH.
vjek said:While not an overtly bad idea, Dashed, our guild would use that for scouting without risk, 100% of the time. And.. as much as I hate to say it, it does sort of kick class-defining invis/stealth in the junk a bit, being vastly superior to either. :)
It's also, potentially, an immunity bypass for mobs with Truesight/See Invis/See Stealth Dispositions as mentioned in the March 2019 newsletter.
A very valid statement as well and certainly a concern Vjek. The goal of the post wasn't so much the nitty gritty detail within my post as to prove that with even 10 seconds of thought, a new idea could be formed that maybe addresses a few diverse concerns at the same time.
vjek said:While not an overtly bad idea, Dashed, our guild would use that for scouting without risk, 100% of the time. And.. as much as I hate to say it, it does sort of kick class-defining invis/stealth in the junk a bit, being vastly superior to either. :)
It's also, potentially, an immunity bypass for mobs with Truesight/See Invis/See Stealth Dispositions as mentioned in the March 2019 newsletter.
Curious. How would your guild use this as a no risk scouting? A group of PCs that are too high level for the dungeon maybe? Of course if the spell of replacement is limited to approriate level only (ie....a 40th level can't call fro a 20th level or even a 35th) that would make that a bit harder to do.
stellarmind said:i revert my choice of a summoning stone. this game doesn't have instanced dungeons not to mention the design is starkingly different. i agree with tanix. let them all suffer. only the strong and dedicated will gain loot and glory. oh boy i can't wait to join on a pvp server in this game. pvp in a dungeon. pvp at bosses. we are going to be so unproductive it'll be so much fun.
I can't wait to transfer to your server after years of equiping gear that is unatainable on a pvp server due to notoriously slow progression. Join the already most powerful guild, and help them progress through content that is now wrote memory for me. The carnage will be glorious. This happened to me in EQ1 and was ultimately why I stopped playing... getting killed by unskilled players that transferred from a PvE server fully geared in Plane of Time and Sleeper's gear while we were still progressing through the lower Planes... they didn't even have any "pvp skills" (an actual thing), but the gear disparity made it impossible to even damage them (because they were equiped in gear designed to take damage from NPCs that were still 1-2 shotting us.)
Manouk said:But I woud like to present the scenario of a populated dungeon, where a player can pass other groups and maybe get directions. A populated dungeon makes getting around or replacing group members easier, especially if other groups happen to be breaking up at around or near the same time.
Kind of a social dynamic, if one person in one group says they have to go to do errands, another person in another group may say- oh yeah, me too, and also make motions to leave their groups, allowing new formations.
That can happen and did from time to time in EQ. It never is cut and dry, you just have to move with what can be done. Sometimes it was feasible, other times not.
See, this is where I guess we have to disagree on the very core of the issue.
I don't see that replacing a group member with some tool is needed. In fact, I think it should be HARD to replace a group member specifically because grouping in a dungeon is not some common easy thing, it is a difficult task. So, if the dungeon is easy to get around in (EQ had some dungeons where the camps resulted in clearing paths so people could get around carefully with some tools, which is why I liked Test with its low population as every dungeon was risky and a task to work into), then people will be able to get a replacement easier. That said, if it is a hard dungeon, deep within a very hard to get area, then it should ALWAYS be hard to add people to it. That is the trade off.
The problem with this type of tool is it invalidates the hard to get to areas by allowing people to more easily handle the situation. I think that is counter to good game play, counter to risk vs reward, counter to the whole point of a deep, dark and difficult area. There has to be some areas in the game where players need to plan for large chunks of time to be able to experience the content and spells like CotH conflict with that goal.
We should be VERY suspicious of any type of feature that can damage that risk vs reward game play balance or we end up right back in the hands of a moden mainstream MMO where "inconvenience" is the key development goal.
Call of the Hero was one of those spells I think was a bad choice by Verant and I think it (among many others I could go into) is something that conflicts with the entire premise of "risk vs reward" and "meaningful" game play.
DracoKalen said:vjek said:While not an overtly bad idea, Dashed, our guild would use that for scouting without risk, 100% of the time. And.. as much as I hate to say it, it does sort of kick class-defining invis/stealth in the junk a bit, being vastly superior to either. :)
It's also, potentially, an immunity bypass for mobs with Truesight/See Invis/See Stealth Dispositions as mentioned in the March 2019 newsletter.
Curious. How would your guild use this as a no risk scouting? A group of PCs that are too high level for the dungeon maybe? Of course if the spell of replacement is limited to approriate level only (ie....a 40th level can't call fro a 20th level or even a 35th) that would make that a bit harder to do.
You could use this to scout a dungeon by simply standing in a known safe location and channeling the ability the whole time while 1 person ran through the dungeon without impunity... Alternatively, I could see guild sending 5 players to a boss using this, then they form their own group to summon the rest of their guild 1 person at a time until they had 5 other people to form another group to start summoning the next group, and the next group... Bam! A raid force in front of a Boss in less than 10 minutes.
Darch said:stellarmind said:i revert my choice of a summoning stone. this game doesn't have instanced dungeons not to mention the design is starkingly different. i agree with tanix. let them all suffer. only the strong and dedicated will gain loot and glory. oh boy i can't wait to join on a pvp server in this game. pvp in a dungeon. pvp at bosses. we are going to be so unproductive it'll be so much fun.
I can't wait to transfer to your server after years of equiping gear that is unatainable on a pvp server due to notoriously slow progression. Join the already most powerful guild, and help them progress through content that is now wrote memory for me. The carnage will be glorious. This happened to me in EQ1 and was ultimately why I stopped playing... getting killed by unskilled players that transferred from a PvE server fully geared in Plane of Time and Sleeper's gear while we were still progressing through the lower Planes... they didn't even have any "pvp skills" (an actual thing), but the gear disparity made it impossible to even damage them (because they were equiped in gear designed to take damage from NPCs that were still 1-2 shotting us.)
Well, that should have never happend (When did that happen because it was absoultely not allowed when I played, only PvP to PvE). Server transfers should not be allowed, and PvP to PvE or PvE to PvP should absolutely never happen regardless of company circumstances. It is a violation of the very basic princpals of those servers.
Darch said:
You could use this to scout a dungeon by simply standing in a known safe location and channeling the ability the whole time while 1 person ran through the dungeon without impunity... Alternatively, I could see guild sending 5 players to a boss using this, then they form their own group to summon the rest of their guild 1 person at a time until they had 5 other people to form another group to start summoning the next group, and the next group... Bam! A raid force in front of a Boss in less than 10 minutes.
This, in fact, did happen.
Yeah, COH was a stupid spell lol. People can go to popular zones and get groups easy. The best part about this is that everything is dying. So it's easy to get to your groups by simply running because all the mobs are dead for the most part. But if you went to a not so known dungeon then you better hope your group doesn't disband...or you are screwed...which is how it should be. Only the people willing to take the time to go into the depths of a nasty dungeon for loot should be rewarded...not some easy COH mechanic that brings people to the group with ease. If your time doesn't permit you going into the depths of hell for the best loot and exp, then you don't deserve that group imo.
Here is a use of it I designed for my raid on Dain Frostweaver IV using CoH.
Ok, the top area where Dain is (6) is at the third level of the castle, but there is a well that goes all the way down to (8) which is called the pit. It drops through from where Dains room is all the way down to the bottom throughout each level. Here is the trick with Dain, he banishes a person each 45 seconds to the pit where you drop down to the bottom. Down at the bottom of the pit is a bunch of nasty fast spawning mobs.
The traditional way to kill Dain (who had an ENORMOUS amount of HP) was to pull him down to the pit area and fight him there all the while killing all the other spawns in the Pit who constantly would pop during the fight (fights in EQ lasted hours depending on your head count)This was a VERY LONG FIGHT due to the way it worked. So, you had your MT constantly being banished, dropping down and Dain would run back and forth.
So.., I thought... why not pull Dain to Thurgadin zone line? You zone in the raid from the city (easy peasy), set up a CoH group at the top there. Send another group down to the pit to camp in the corner, killing a mob if need to stay there, then as the tank gets banished, CoH him up and repeat (ie you split part of your group so you could easily invite a player in the pit and CoH them to the top, drop them from group, then repeat). The pull was a bit difficult, it took 5 monks to FD pull him to the zone.
Once that was done, we had a MT and ST setup (with a back up TT) and let them cycle through a bit to gain agro. Once they setup a sufficient amount of agro between them, we cycled the Tanks through CoH right behind Dain, with basically little issue. (so much for peoples claim EQ was tank and spank all the time).
Point is, CoH was a MASSIVE cheat for this as due to this process we were able to kill Dain in record time, with little issue and simply walk right out over to the city when done.
Yeah, CoH is a POWERFUL spell.
I am not completely opposed to the idea of a Call of the Hero spell, as long as there is an expensive reagent or some negative impact attached to it. It also needs to be specific class spell. I like the idea of the summoner being able to summon an item that dissapates after you logout.
Maybe a cost could be XP to limit its abuse? If you want to summon someone, then a group member has to sacrifice 10% of their xp? That way it won't be cast frivolously.
Walpurgis said:I am not completely opposed to the idea of a Call of the Hero spell, as long as there is an expensive reagent or some negative impact attached to it. It also needs to be specific class spell. I like the idea of the summoner being able to summon an item that dissapates after you logout.
Maybe a cost could be XP to limit its abuse? If you want to summon someone, then a group member has to sacrifice 10% of their xp? That way it won't be cast frivolously.
What happens when a player hits max level? XP becomes pointless.
Tanix said:Walpurgis said:I am not completely opposed to the idea of a Call of the Hero spell, as long as there is an expensive reagent or some negative impact attached to it. It also needs to be specific class spell. I like the idea of the summoner being able to summon an item that dissapates after you logout.
Maybe a cost could be XP to limit its abuse? If you want to summon someone, then a group member has to sacrifice 10% of their xp? That way it won't be cast frivolously.
What happens when a player hits max level? XP becomes pointless.
It wasn't like that in EQ, I remember having to grind xp before raids to make sure I had enough of a buffer so I wouldn't de-level. They are going to have it so you lose a level in this game right? If they want death to sting at max level then they should have xp matter even at max level.
Walpurgis said: ... They are going to have it so you lose a level in this game right? ...
Not so far, no. From the FAQ today:
7.0 Will there be a ‘death penalty’? ... So death will sting, but it will also not involve losing an unreasonable amount of experience, or levels, or a permanent loss of items.
Walpurgis said:Tanix said:Walpurgis said:I am not completely opposed to the idea of a Call of the Hero spell, as long as there is an expensive reagent or some negative impact attached to it. It also needs to be specific class spell. I like the idea of the summoner being able to summon an item that dissapates after you logout.
Maybe a cost could be XP to limit its abuse? If you want to summon someone, then a group member has to sacrifice 10% of their xp? That way it won't be cast frivolously.
What happens when a player hits max level? XP becomes pointless.
It wasn't like that in EQ, I remember having to grind xp before raids to make sure I had enough of a buffer so I wouldn't de-level. They are going to have it so you lose a level in this game right? If they want death to sting at max level then they should have xp matter even at max level.
It was in EQ. Once you gained enough exp to max your level, you had a huge buffer in play. I remember being worried about deleveling (I even did delevel during a hate raid I was pulling for a friend guild and had to have some of that raid come down and kill a few mobs to get me enough exp to enter hate again) but that was in the early range (and remember in that, level 47 was the cut off for hate and Fear so you had levels of space if you were careful).
I don't thinik a simple exp penalty is enough. Keep in mind that exp was not the only worry in game play. If you died, exp was part of the problem, the other part was getting back to your corpse in a hard to get area, so exp as a defacto penalty isn't enough of a deterent.
Being able to transfer to a specific spot in a dungeon of difficult nature to get to, well.. there should be a "risk". I think this "risk" should be that the player has a chance, you can make it a small one (maybe a 5-10% chance) where a player could be transferred somewhere in the dungeon. You could even put a reasonable function to it. That is, the level of how far you are removed from the original location is a component of value based on a percentage. So, if your "fail" is 10% you materialize close to the destination and how far you are away from that will be percentage based on the fail of the spell. So, you could be summoned, the spell fails, you appear a room away screaming bloody hell and your party recovers you.... Or... you could be far away and die without help in a very distant area of the dungeon.
See, I think MOST will say "Nah, don't want that!" because MOST will love the cheat of having an instant travel spell to move people through a difficult dungeon. That is mainstream and well... the question is if Pantheon is mainstream or not.
I remain... skeptical and if my comments make VR nervous, then it should because they are proving me right. If they don't have a worry, this won't matter.
Tanix said:Well, that should have never happend (When did that happen because it was absoultely not allowed when I played, only PvP to PvE). Server transfers should not be allowed, and PvP to PvE or PvE to PvP should absolutely never happen regardless of company circumstances. It is a violation of the very basic princpals of those servers.
It happened around 2004 when the population took a heavy hit and they started merging PvP servers (Tallon Zek, Vallon Zek and then the newer Sullon Zek) and allowing PvE to PvP transfers. I agree that it should never be allowed, but server merging will be inevitable after 4-5 years if the game doesn't appeal to enough people. The race based PvP was the best thing ever, because instead of a free-for-all, you could actually trust players of your own race and you would even go out of your way to help them if they were engaged in pvp because they would absolutely help you later... the every-man-for-themselves pvp servers are f'n awful; not being able to trust your own group members is a toilet in the making. I've played on free for all pvp servers before where after grouping for several hours I discovered that the rest of the group were all on their twinked alts waiting for a guild raid and time for the raid had come, so they turned on me and split my loot... mind you, I was on my lvl 30'ish main character and nearly encumbered because the 80-90p worth of gold and silver I was carrying was about as much as the total I had in the bank. Too many D-holes out there nowdays to start a new game on a pvp server for me... but I will definitiely transfer over several years from now >:)
Great thread, really have enjoyed following it. Now time to put my thoughts out there. VR can mark me down reasonably aligned with Tanix on most all points except one.
I find any non player means of circumventing content to be game breaking. Summoning Stones at dungeon entrances, Way points throughout the dungon. Teleport stones between continents ALL greatly reduce the size of a World down to what may as well be a "world" with only two zones, a small dungon or one small island. I want many zones, deep dungons and a huge world.
I also like Tanix lived early EQ1 with "limited play time" of wife, three kids in school, exsessive amounts of overtime at work and I still found time to play. So I find that "we have lives now" to be bogus. Also like Tanix a majority of my guild I ran (on my limited time) were also working adults. The exception was we allowed these parents to invite their kids if they choose.
Where Tanix and I differ is the way I'm reading it he is against the CotH spells. I'm for them on limited number of classes. CotH like Portals, and Corpse find/summon are Class defining spells/abilits, they're what make a class desirable. If you don't want long travel times, befriend or play a Wizard or Druid, if you want to be able to replace a player while deep in a dungon, play or befriend a class that can do that. EVERY class should have one or more Class Defining Abilitys! As soon as VR puts something in game that gives all players the ability to circumvent that ability they have broken that class. I know this as I lived it as a Wizard in EQ1 when PoP came out, At least Druids still had thorns and Sow.
Zorkon said:Great thread, really have enjoyed following it. Now time to put my thoughts out there. VR can mark me down reasonably aligned with Tanix on most all points except one.
I find any non player means of circumventing content to be game breaking. Summoning Stones at dungeon entrances, Way points throughout the dungon. Teleport stones between continents ALL greatly reduce the size of a World down to what may as well be a "world" with only two zones, a small dungon or one small island. I want many zones, deep dungons and a huge world.
I also like Tanix lived early EQ1 with "limited play time" of wife, three kids in school, exsessive amounts of overtime at work and I still found time to play. So I find that "we have lives now" to be bogus. Also like Tanix a majority of my guild I ran (on my limited time) were also working adults. The exception was we allowed these parents to invite their kids if they choose.
Where Tanix and I differ is the way I'm reading it he is against the CotH spells. I'm for them on limited number of classes. CotH like Portals, and Corpse find/summon are Class defining spells/abilits, they're what make a class desirable. If you don't want long travel times, befriend or play a Wizard or Druid, if you want to be able to replace a player while deep in a dungon, play or befriend a class that can do that. EVERY class should have one or more Class Defining Abilitys! As soon as VR puts something in game that gives all players the ability to circumvent that ability they have broken that class. I know this as I lived it as a Wizard in EQ1 when PoP came out, At least Druids still had thorns and Sow.
Honestly I think CotH fits the summoner's kit, the main problem is that it will make the summoner a must have in any deep dungeon to seek out replacement, just like Warlock in early wow were mandatory for dungeon runs (or close to) because they allowed to summon other players and made moving to the entrance easier.
I'm not against a class having an edge over something, that's part of having a non neutered game overall, but I fear it will be way too much of a benefit and duplicating this skill to different classes will make it feel far less "unique".
That makes the choice simple :
1) Have the summoner beeing the only one summoning players, making it the defacto DPS in dungeon depths, raid attempts, quick relocation.
2) Give a summoning spell to different classes, breaking the uniqueness and making it baseline to some roles for the sake of equality.
3) Not making a summoning spell, keeping the vertical progression in a dungeon real and cautious.
I would prefer 3 to every other solution.