10 weeks have passed,thoughts?

[AstralUniverse]

In addition to more adaptable and robust structure for the Summon Creature line spells which a developer is currently wotking on, I have spoken about a separate idea purely for wizards and sorcerers, as I think the posters here have made a very strong argument as to why these 'squishy' casters are so reliant on summons to guard them.

My current idea, which is no way guaranteed to happen as will require some scripting trickery, is to remove the 3 summoned blade spells from all spellbooks other than the above two.

These agro drawing wizard/sorc specific guarding summons will be locked in parry mode, sometimes true strike on a riposte and not function with associate tool. They would be very durable and suit casters who want to forego the regular summon spells and concentrate on offence casting. It would not leave them invulnerable, or offer any protection against archers or other casters but should mean when the mobs descend after casting that AoE the wizard gets some protection.

As soon as I have any ETA on either project I will let community know. In the meantime I'll continue to read and engage here.

While you're at it...

Dont miss this precious opportunity to give mages some scaling with weapon combat feats.

[Jencent]

Changes are bad as hell. And EDR reduction for undeads just killed a lot of streams.

All mages summons become trash tier and not usable in fights. All ma-classes who used scrolls still are fine even without.

TBH better to lock all summons scrolls behind casters and not let mundies to use it. In PvP summons not work anyway (because of WoF, and until WoF will be nerfed - summoner will be never decent PvP class. So what reason to kick those players in the dicesack in the last thing what they like?)

[silverpheonix]

As someone who's played a wizard before this update, and has been trying to level a wizard after this update; I think it's been a positively ghoulish, unpleasant experience.

PVE should not be difficult to the point of being unpleasant for casters, especially when your role in a party is mostly relegated to 'buff things and then follow the group'. Having a summon that has reliable AB / damage / tankiness is your equivalent of contributing in combat beyond wards.

Sure you can spam cantrips, but when you're dealing 10-20 damage / cast and your weaponmaster is dealing 80-120 you really don't feel like you're contributing an awful lot to the fight until you pray to God that you can get a proc on your arcane flux. Then you get to cast one whole spell and feel cool for one fight out of dozens in the dungeon.

With Lore being meta for most builds anyway, you don't even get to feel very awesome as a caster because people are just self-buffing most of the time anyway. Then we go on to further consider that the saves on some mobs are positively goofy. (I.E me doing yuan ti temple, a level like 13 dungeon and meeting regular non-elite non-boss mobs with +34 fort save whilst being mind-affecting immune ((this feels really awesome when they kill my sequence-buffed summon and there's nothing I can do it about !!)))

This is my experience with GSF conj, where my summon should be higher level than the mobs I'm fighting. (It's still getting annihilated.)

God forbid you don't take it and your creatures are total trash.

It just doesn't feel good to play a caster in this day and age, and I really only do it for the roleplay.

I more or less agree with everything you've said, and I can echo that it's extremely discouraging. Doing dungeons with my wizard is just not fun. Yes, you can cantrip spam, but you need to be hasted permanently, otherwise you will lose your cantrips casting on a corpse that vanishes.

I have gone through three cantrips in a single mob numerous times. That sucks. It isn't fun, and that's a problem.

[MissEvelyn]

We should consider giving epic wizards and sorcerers free Auto Quicken on their cantrips. No one should have to burn a Haste spell to speed up a feeble cantrip, when you're a wizard who can level a city with 9th and 10th (epic) level spells.

Call the free feat Cantrip Mastery, let it add +10 or something to Concentration rolls when trying to successfully cast a Cantrip, and also let it hit for half its damage (and no other effects) on a miss.

These sort of changes would make Cantrips more attractive to those who are supposed to utilize them more.

[Security_Blanket]

We should consider giving epic wizards and sorcerers free Auto Quicken on their cantrips. No one should have to burn a Haste spell to speed up a feeble cantrip, when you're a wizard who can level a city with 9th and 10th (epic) level spells.

You can just Quicken your cantrips the old fashioned way through metamagic, that's what I do. It costs me a feat but I also like being able to Quicken cast Haste, Spell Mantle, or anything else I may need to cast in a hurry if caught with my pants down.

[Irongron]

It can be hard to explain my view on these main arcane casters, and why I've been so focused on summons and their use, but I'll give it a try, for sure, as there have been great posts here. I'll try to give it some structure in easily divided sections - not least so those that want to angrily take issue with any of my views can easily do so via quotes without needing to unpick sections from a larger wall of text.

I'm also going to put aside too big issues - boredom & performance. By the first I mean the endless repeating buff spells which I wanted to do away with by introducing sequencers. By the second I'm referring to the very real performance hits caused by summons and their ai and pathfinding.

Arcane casters, for me, primarily suffer from this not being Pen & Paper, but based upon a pen & paper game. In PnP combat lasts ages, one generally only has a handful of fights, with plenty of role-play (and opportunities to rest) in between. One certainly doesn't slog it out against 200 enemies at a time. In PnP a full spellbook is generally pretty well suited to an action based adventure, whereas here it is exhausted very quickly. Spells that are good just once, against one enemy, like Feeblemind, or Slow, can be a fantastic game changer when used against that one monster your PnP party is currently fighting, but far less useful when it's cast against a single creature in a mob. Right now, just investing in Intimidate will generally be far more useful than having a bunch of these spells to call on.

One solution to this that has been (over)used in infi-casting. Any many know this can lead to cheesy repetitive gameplay, and inevitable nerfs to the spells being used when it proves too efficacious, there is room for it, sure, but for me the joy of being a caster should be finding new and interesting spell combinations and tactics, not charging around blasting everything in sight with the same 3 or 4 spells.

Another has been cooldown abilities (and I've also enjoyed having spell clutch on a recent character), but this can also be far from ideal, as one can find oneself either slow-walking in between, or worse (in my view) rushing through content in a race against the ability duration clock.

From the development side there is the question of balancing spells - so that all of a given level can have a reasonably equal utility - we've done well in that regard but it is essentially a near impossible task. Looking at any given class on Arelith and you'll generally find the same spells being used across many characters, with many others being ignored. We can change them, of course, but that can amount to a zero sum game between the spells - if one wins out, then another will lose out.

Before I start mentioning summons, and my views (partly based upon what I've read here), I can outline what I think -might- work in regard to spells, but given it would be (yet another) departure from core D&D concepts I'd be hesitant. Essentially I'd like to find a a way for generalist wizards and sorcerers to use all schools. Having them draw upon separate reserves would encourage a versatility of use, and give more meaningfulness to specializing. How it would work? Off the top of my head - based upon a new skill introduced to study each one, which would either fill separate spellbooks, or something akin to an arcane flux effect, where once cast a spell could 'flux' into one of a different school, that would become immediately available.

I'm running a bit short of time now and haven't even managed to touch upon summons, and I really wanted to talk a bit about the evil summon list and why it is currently much more powerful, but that will have to wait. What I will first say is that the Summon Creature range of spells WILL be improved, but not to the extent they were last time. Why? Because of my primary issue with summons...

When too powerful they make the summoner, and whatever spells they used entirely superfluous. The actual gameplay becomes using the associate tool to coast along behind your creature, picking up the treasure it leaves behind. I have seen this time and time again in the DM client, and it's maddening.

I absolutely reject the argument (which has been made so many times now) that "Why should we have to actually PLAY such an outdated game? If I was interested in gameplay I wouldn't play a 20 year old game!" Our job as developers should be to make the gameplay challenging and fun, and not simply make a sandbox where people can RP as whatever they choose with minimal effort.

This wandering along behind an all powerful summon (which still happens an awful lot) is just boring as hell, and creates no incentive to discuss, let alone fix up spells and other abilities. Reverting that big change that boosted many summons to god tier? Sadly it had to happen to arrive in this situation - with a problem that desperately needs to be solved we are all focused on doing so. If through overpowered summons, or other abilities we make PvE content a trivial chore we shouldn't be surprised if players' focus switches to PvP. I've played a fair bit on Skal lately, and I love how challenging it remains, for the most part.

I'll likely answer at greater length on this thread soon enough, but right now am being called away from machine.

Thanks for the continued feedback.

[Machado]

With so many classes and builds to balance, I can see how hard is to find the right tune here.
Honestly, I don't like how underwhelming the summons become. And with the abundance of WM/LM, with full access to refundable scrolls/wands, the full casters are in dire situation.
I still think the mundanes should have access to everything they have right now. The LM dip and the new Lore meta add a interesting approach to them. However, they should not excel the full casters on that.

My suggestion is to provide a edge for committed casters who rely on summons. Give a upgrade on the spell focuses conjuration/necromancy. Or make the full casters only, to be able to buff the summons the old fashionable way, like henchmen. The mundanes should stick to the sequencers as they are now.

[Xerah]

While I can understand that some people don’t like the game play style of hanging out behind summons, I am certain that others do actually really enjoy it and not because they are immortal (some well built melee builds can do the same thing).

It’s a valid game play style (who else loved necro from D2 with an army of skeletons?) and preference for some people. Totally respect that some people don’t find it interesting but we’ve always been told that Arelith is for all styles, so I think some care should be taken to not eliminate types that other might find distasteful.

Personally, my favourite style is fighting with summons with is probably least affected by these changes.

[Security_Blanket]

I don't think you'll ever achieve a balance with casters as long as the bonus to saves vs spells from Spellcraft exist. I have to invest 2 pre-epic feats and an epic feat to achieve +6 DC to a single spell school. A character with 14 Intelligence and 33 points put into Spellcraft ends up with +7 to saves vs spells, not a single school either mind you but all schools, and that's not including all you'll get from items too. You can add all the cool new spells you like, but none of them are going to get used so long as they continue to never work.

[Seren]

When too powerful they make the summoner, and whatever spells they used entirely superfluous. The actual gameplay becomes using the associate tool to coast along behind your creature, picking up the treasure it leaves behind. I have seen this time and time again in the DM client, and it's maddening.

The counter argument to this is that if you have a weaponmaster buffed up with every single buff you can muster as a wizard, the same thing happens only faster. Sure there's a little bit of inter-peer interaction happening but most ppl will not walk through and RP a dungeon run anyway because your wards will wear off before you reach the end, which makes it a moot point. While dungeoneering most people may as well be treated as NPCs with the way they interact with one-another.

There are cases where this doesn't happen, but making the PVE viability of certain classes terrible is not the solution. The aforementioned problem still exists and it isn't a real and true solution to your previous concern because I, as a wizard, am still capable of soloing content; it's just a pain and I need to get more creative with how I crowd control mobs; which has really just been me relegating to spamming blind/deaf and daze on every single mob and praying to God it doesn't have a +30 to will or fort at level like 10. (Some mobs do, which makes them very hard to deal with.)

[Irongron]

When too powerful they make the summoner, and whatever spells they used entirely superfluous. The actual gameplay becomes using the associate tool to coast along behind your creature, picking up the treasure it leaves behind. I have seen this time and time again in the DM client, and it's maddening.

The counter argument to this is that if you have a weaponmaster buffed up with every single buff you can muster as a wizard, the same thing happens only faster. Sure there's a little bit of inter-peer interaction happening but most ppl will not walk through and RP a dungeon run anyway because your wards will wear off before you reach the end, which makes it a moot point. While dungeoneering most people may as well be treated as NPCs with the way they interact with one-another.

There are cases where this doesn't happen, but making the PVE viability of certain classes terrible is not the solution. The aforementioned problem still exists and it isn't a real and true solution to your previous concern because I, as a wizard, am still capable of soloing content; it's just a pain and I need to get more creative with how I crowd control mobs; which has really just been me relegating to spamming blind/deaf and daze on every single mob and praying to God it doesn't have a +30 to will or fort at level like 10. (Some mobs do, which makes them very hard to deal with.)

I'm not against using summons in this way, (also in answer to Xerah above) but I feel there has to be more to the gameplay, and that class, than walking behind an invulnerable summon. It certainly gives no incentive to do anything else for Wizard summoners if they can effectively overcome all content with their summons alone. I definitely don't think summons should be useless in PvE.

[Peacelily]

The issue is that a lot of caster mains feel their spells are simply unimpressive. Saves and HP are at such a high level that magic against even PvE mobs is by necessity not terribly impressive. Wizards simply don't get the spells necessary to use even level 3 spells and up against every single set of mobs on a long dungeon, where you might face a hundred mobs, with twenty sets of five enemies. With that, longer lasting spells become necessary; and a persistent spell that attacks against a number of spawns is - well, a summon

I mean, taking the Formian Queen, she's an Outsider. She should be subject to Banishment or WoF. She is not, because she's an NPC. So ... okay. There are maybe 10, 15 mobs in her chamber alone. After getting to her, how is a wizard going to deal with her without a summon?

[Security_Blanket]

Maybe something can be done using familiars. Add some spellcasting ability maybe, or maybe spells cast on the caster also apply to the familiar. I'd love to see it given some utility beyond using the fairy to pick locks.

[-XXX-]

There are two extremes to the spellcaster playpattern spectrum - while summoners might not be very interesting, teaming up with an elementalist rarely translates into fun PvE experience either (at least for me).

Also, regarding racing through dungeons - I believe this goes against the spirit of an RP server.
I also believe the biggest culprit here to be turn based wards/buffs. Why not change all turn/level duration spells into hour/level duration?
While this might not prevent people from rushing through dungeons further, it'd at least remove one very powerful incentive to do so.

[silverpheonix]

The issue is that a lot of caster mains feel their spells are simply unimpressive. Saves and HP are at such a high level that magic against even PvE mobs is by necessity not terribly impressive. Wizards simply don't get the spells necessary to use even level 3 spells and up against every single set of mobs on a long dungeon, where you might face a hundred mobs, with twenty sets of five enemies. With that, longer lasting spells become necessary; and a persistent spell that attacks against a number of spawns is - well, a summon

I mean, taking the Formian Queen, she's an Outsider. She should be subject to Banishment or WoF. She is not, because she's an NPC. So ... okay. There are maybe 10, 15 mobs in her chamber alone. After getting to her, how is a wizard going to deal with her without a summon?

Exactly. Why bother having a spell prepared with a cool effect secondary to damage if:
1) You only have one or two preparations due to limited and highly competitive spell slot space; and
2) You often need to roll a 1 because saves are obscene.

And let's not talk about spells that allow multiple saves.

Maximized IGMS is the single best 9th level damage spell in 90% of situations for a very good reason. You want to see more diversity in spell use? Make other spells worth using.

[Kalthariam]

I mean..

Different Floats for Different Folks.

What's really the difference between an untouchable monk build just afking through dungeons (Or whatever else high AC high avoidance) with auto attacks and Summoners keeping their pets going?

Martials devolve into right click spam all the time. Just buff up, haste and right click, wait till everythings dead, loot then move on.

It's really not that different from the Summoner Play style, there's dozens of ways martials are just better at PvE Content in basically every way than Casters.

The only difference is Martials can't have their only offensive option utterly removed by a single Dismissal Trap, or a mob casting WoF, where as Conjurers (especially those not using undead) can just have their only offensive option completely deleted and have no way to protect them from it.

You can't WOF away a weapon master, but you can a planar conduit.

You can't dismissal Rod the ground to prevent a martial from appearing, but you can do it against conjurers.

The amount of removal for conjurations has also skyrocketed on the server in newer areas.

I get some people don't like the "I want an army of minions and want the minions to fight for me while I manage them" play style. That's FINE.

but there's also nothing inherently wrong with that play style, and it's frustrating to hear people say "I don't like it, therefore it's wrong and should be discouraged."

I don't like Weapon Masters entire existance and how it basically muscles it's way into basically every single martial build.

I don't like how dipping 3 classes just for skills and minor abilities is considered "Normal" and how pure classing is basically frowned upon.

I don't like Arcane Archers being race locked to elves only.

Doesn't mean those options are wrong (Except maybe the last one) or shouldn't be something that isn't allowed or discouraged.

I just find it frustrating to see a perfectly legitment way of playing a game being condemned because someone just doesn't like it, but there's really no major difference between it and other ways people play.

[Itikar]

My thoughts have not changed since the modification was made. Overall the change did not contribute to any meaningful increase of fun, it did not balance neither classes among them nor PvE, in fact it made things worse in my opinion, it dumbed down the system of the summon buffs further, and it decreased the ability to solo and thus enjoy exploring the well crafted areas of the server.

The changes that were made to alleviate were not sufficient to compensate the loss on part of the classes that relied on summons.

It is not all doom and gloom, on one point Irongron was right, and perhaps the problem persists, which is that npcs with summons are unbalanced compared to the dungeons where they are spawned. This is glaringly evident in particular in low level areas, but also in higher level ones to an extent. However, I do not think a blanket nerf was the correct solution to this problem, but the problem undoubtedly and undeniably existed and still exists.

Secondarily the summons are not entirely trash, but are still somewhat functional in many contexts, from the little I could see.

Nevertheless, my feedback to the change remains a deeply negative one on the whole, and I am not going to play any summoner class for the foreseeable future on this server.

[AddledPunster]

I had been primarily playing a caster before and during the Sequencer change hit summons. Mainly on my Wizard, who was a 25/5 Illusionist Specialist/Loremaster, but I was also playing around with some druids in that time.

The Sequencer change was, at the time, pretty nice. As someone who had played a druid, I remember how miserable it was whenever I felt like I HAD to buff all four Elemental Swarm. People would cast haste on me out of pity, and my entire spellbook went to it. It was terribly unfun and I hated it. While it did kinda bite to lose the ability to enhance my own summon with my own spells, getting to slap a suite of extended, maximized buffs on my pet in five actions instead of thirty was a huge treat.

With that being said, I can't deny that playing a summoner-dependent caster as it was implemented was more than a little drab. At its most engaging, I would walk around on my Illusionist blasting mind-vulnerable crowds with free Color Spray until I noticed I had an arcane flux. Even then, while I COULD cast high level spells, they rarely felt very effective when my summons could mop things up in marginally more time. In groups, I would refuse to bring summons out unless I was asked to, but even then, there wasn't a whole lot that I accomplished; most of the enemies would be rather quickly killed by the martial party members. I might be able to get a spell like Weird off at a group before anyone else engages it. Again, my contributions beyond buffs felt rather minimal in most cases. I would certainly agree that it was boring, but I also know that's a more subjective thing. What I think we can ALL agree with is that this sort of gameplay is not engaging. I do think that this is a shame.

I stopped playing my illusionist caster in January, well before the change being discussed, and my subsequent characters have been mundane. With that being said, when I was starting out on my current character, a halfling rogue slinger, I was using scrolls to summon pets fairly regularly. While I found this somewhat more engaging than when I played a wizard, it was stupidly easy until this update came out and made the pets MUCH more vulnerable, to the point t hat it simply stopped being cost effective. I'd have to spend more money on more expensive scrolls AND use more healing packs to boot, further slowing things down.

This DID encourage me to branch out into other methods, and I have since found the joys of easily craftable rogue grenades. I have to be picky about where I go if I want to do anything on my own, but I'm finding myself able to manage in a more enjoyable and engaging way. Plus, I'm having more fun in groups!

To that end, regarding Irongron's stated intentions, mission accomplished for me!

But I cannot help but also acknowledge that this subdues something that is both a valid gameplay conceit (even if I'm disenchanted with it) AND a valid fantasy concept. I LOVE the idea of a wizard conjuring a big, hulking Elemental to be his brute while he casts spells from afar, it's one of my all time FAVOURITE mental images of a mage being a badass powerhouse. Yes, I loved playing a Magician in EverQuest. How could you tell?

This is to say nothing of the fact that obligate casters are in a really bad place right now on Arelith. As Irongron mentioned, casters suffer from this game not being true turn based combat. I can manage being a wizard a lot better when my six seconds of action are completely isolated where I can get some space and get a cast off that makes a big difference. Not so much when the opponents in melee get an auto-attack AND can stick within 5 feet of me the entire time. Even BioWare acknowledged this problem when they boosted the duration of the Summon Creature line to 24 hours from 3.0's 1 round per level.

I think that this gameplay method should be preserved, but if anything, it should be a perk of playing a highly specialized build. And yes, I'm talking "Conjuration/Necromancer Specialist Wizard" kind of specialized. Warlocks taking summoning focused pact feats, or even a new path for classes like Shaman or Druid. NOT just taking the Spellfocus feats. Granted, I also think these Summons should be more mechanically engaging in general; give these specialists spells or abilities to enhance our summons temporarily, giving different lines that are effective in different situations. Offensive spells that setup the summon to do more damage, or make it easier for them to land special attacks like knockdown or disarm.

But, all in all, I'm not entirely sure how you can fully, properly address this issue in Arelith without radically changing how these classes play, as Irongron indicated. I'm not sure I'd be keen on the exact idea he presented about spells setting up rotations between different schools, but I see where he's coming from and it's still a step in the right direction. Maybe I'd be sold on it if he had the time to spell it out in more detail. Not to mention that it would need to be implemented in a game that's old enough to drink.

I also want to bring up the topic Irongron mentioned that I'm not sure I had ever considered before: the impact summons have on the server load. Again, this game is old enough to drink, and the netcoding was done with small groups running on temporary servers with 2001 internet in mind, and we've seen how messy things get when there are lots of wards up in a crowded room. Is there any way you can demonstrate how much impact a summoned creature has on the server?

[Naiinara]

I understand the idea behind the sequencers, but I miss casting displacement on summons and using invisibility purge; or making non elementals mind immune and dropping stinking cloud on them; or casting silence on a summon and sending it to harass an NPC caster. The sequencers did take some diversity away with what they brought.

I get what people are saying about summons being questionable now. I'm one of the mage players who does use summons. But my problem with the previous versions was I didn't feel my character was at risk. My character could watch a fight while invisible and nearly never have to do anything. The mundanes really do have to risk it. Most of the time it goes well; but, unlike an invisible mage there will be those exceptional times.

I've seen the complaints about spell DCs and saves too. I'm not sure the saves or DCs are actually the root of the problem. The spells were all designed for a system where mages could only cast one spell per round, and there wasn't max HP rolls, and no one had +12 to stats. We cant change any of that now though. I think we just need to accept that a failed save is going to be rare: that it's akin to a caster making a critical hit. Then we address what damage is fair, what affects on failed saves are fair. For instance finger of death could do more damage, and on a failed save the person has three rounds to use death ward or lesser restoration or anything appropriate. It's not really the pen and paper many refer to then, but we're already away from that with +12 stats in multiple areas, and max HP rolls anyway. Let's face it.

[Diegovog]

When too powerful they make the summoner, and whatever spells they used entirely superfluous.

That's not a summoning problem. That's a creature design problem and has always been. Because creatures in Arelith have +1000% HP than the base creature would. On the other hand, both damaging spells and rest have been heavily nerfed. So you can't constantly rest, nor damage spells deal as much damage as they should. This has always been the case. As a result, you either spend your whole spellbook on a few groups or you rely on summons.

Essentially... 95% of the spells have always been superfluous in PvE. Nerfing summons does not address that in the slightest. Adding sequencers and removing spells cast on summons only greatly increase this gap in spell usefulness.

[Naghast]

(Side note: If you reduce the mob hp to amount that can be taken out with one offensive spell or two, it'll likely result in weaponmasters oneshotting entire groups of mobs with whirlwind attack)

[Elurion]

...This wandering along behind an all powerful summon (which still happens an awful lot) is just boring as hell, and creates no incentive to discuss, let alone fix up spells and other abilities. Reverting that big change that boosted many summons to god tier? Sadly it had to happen to arrive in this situation - with a problem that desperately needs to be solved we are all focused on doing so. If through overpowered summons, or other abilities we make PvE content a trivial chore we shouldn't be surprised if players' focus switches to PvP. I've played a fair bit on Skal lately, and I love how challenging it remains, for the most part.

I'll likely answer at greater length on this thread soon enough, but right now am being called away from machine.

Thanks for the continued feedback.

I disagree with the premise that using summons is boring. I don't consider using summons and the associate tool as just "walking behind summons". Using summons is one of the most engaging gameplay elements in Arelith. When you bind the associate tool to a mouse button, and position your player and your summons manually, it changes NWN gameplay for the better. I'm constantly micromanaging my summons, focusing down mobs by order of threat, keeping my squishy caster safe, sending my 20 HP familiar with a 10 minute cooldown off to a safe corner, casting a valuable limited CC spell here or there if my summons do get into some trouble, etc. It gives me a chance to recognize "oh, this would be a good time to cast a Fear" or "I need to pull back that summon, its needs a heal." or "that guy needs to be breached before I attack". It gives my caster a place in and a way to interact with the 3 flurry combat round, instead of standing back and casting acid splash once. It's actually engaging in precisely the same way that smacking things with a weaponmaster is engaging. Is anyone that's making the argument that summons make content trivial actually using them in challenging situations? It's one thing to follow behind a dire wolf through the Goblin Fortress. It's another thing entirely to make progress through the most difficult content on the server to completion using summons as a wizard.

I am 100% with you on wishing casters didn't have to rely on summons. I wish I could tear Goblin Fortress down to the foundations with nothing but my magic missiles and sleeps and fears. But if you want to get people to stop "following summons", you have to give casters meaningful (high damage, or high chance of success DC) things to cast and the ability to cast them as often as they need to cast them: give them meaningful damage output/impact in the PvE environment. Because right now, unless you're swinging a sword, you're just not doing that. IGMS once per 3 minutes isn't even close. What is Burning Hands supposed to do in a level 25 dungeon where every mob has 500HP? When 5 mobs spawn with 4 APR that are hitting for 25 damage each, and you can do what... cast acid splash once for 10d6? 500 potential dmg vs 30 dmg? It doesn't make any sense. The only thing other than summons that gives wizards some sort of equality in PvE is a Transmutation specialist's Tenser's Transformation, and that's because suddenly they are interacting with the 3 flurry combat round instead of standing flat footed for a 30 dmg cantrip.

There are so many things one could do to add even more flavor to wizards and other casters, and there are lots of good ideas being tossed out there, but casters are just playing a different game from the melees. Summons, Tensers, and Divine Power are the only thing that connect those two worlds.

[Naghast]

Another side note:
Tenser's transformation disables your spellcasting for the duration of it.

I played a tensers wizard for a while. Still do.

It's not strong. It's mainly just a worse spellsword.

(Personally i found the damage to be quite underwhelming on it
But then, my personal setup is a bit weird. Maybe if you focus on strength instead of a weird full int / high dex/con setup i did you'd have acceptable damage levels. Maybe. I don't know. But then again, if you focus on strength mainly, you may as well just play spellsword.)

[Hazard]

This wandering along behind an all powerful summon (which still happens an awful lot) is just boring as hell...

I didn't realise it was boring.
I thought I was having fun.

[Lacki]

When too powerful they make the summoner, and whatever spells they used entirely superfluous.

That's not a summoning problem. That's a creature design problem and has always been. Because creatures in Arelith have +1000% HP than the base creature would. On the other hand, both damaging spells and rest have been heavily nerfed. So you can't constantly rest, nor damage spells deal as much damage as they should. This has always been the case. As a result, you either spend your whole spellbook on a few groups or you rely on summons.

Essentially... 95% of the spells have always been superfluous in PvE. Nerfing summons does not address that in the slightest. Adding sequencers and removing spells cast on summons only greatly increase this gap in spell usefulness.

Surely the solution to this is to lower mob saves a little given that spellcasters are the ones targeting saves 90% of the time?

The absolute highest DC you can reasonably get is about DC 41 on your highest level spells if you invest everything you have into your main casting attribute, a little higher if you're a Shadow Mage (lol), Evocation Specialist (LMAO) or Seeker/Cloistered Cleric
From my understanding, the majority of mobs that are worth anything to a character that's high enough level to reach those kinds of DCs - keeping in mind that this DC 41 is on the caster's highest level spells and their lower level ones aren't going to do as much - have saves across the board that are high enough to enable said mobs to not care at all.
I think this becomes even more egregious when you recall that you've given up EVERYTHING to get your casting mod that high when you could have invested in, say, CON rather than DC casting.

Then you factor in all the immunities that so many high level bosses and even general mobs have (so many enemies have mind effect immunity, it's crazy) and I can definitely see why casting feels like an exercise in futility. The summon is meant to be there as the caster's meatshield while they do their magic to wipe out mobs and yet because of mob saves the summon ended up more useful in the end.