my summons die a lot, help !

[Diaco]

It also blew my mind that summons on this game are not immune/almost immune to area damage, in most ARPG it is the case because summons are dumb as fuck and always die in huge aoe like dumbass because they don't move.

I though median xl devs were ARPG lovers and had a huge ARPG experience ?
Even in diablo 4 it's the case lmao

Among other things you have put your finger on what is by far the biggest issue with Median (and D2 LoD / Remastered) summons, including but not limited to "real" summons but also Mercenaries -- their AI is not only brain-dead but (importantly) cannot be modified in any way, by the player character. So for example if you have summons whose AI is hard-coded by the game engine to suicidally charge forward into certain death at the hands of a boss monster, that's what they'll do no matter what the owning player wants, and then it becomes a race to see if the player can resummon them faster than the boss monster can 1-shot them.

Note that this situation, combined with the ridiculously high amount of damage that most Median bosses (and other super-powered mobs) do, in effect means that "pre-buffing" your summonable minions, is (unlike with vanilla D2 where doing this with minions like the Grizzly and the Valkyrie is an important playing skill), basically pointless. Your Median minions get 1-shotted no matter how much you pre-buff them so there is no point in trying.

Yes, there are some Median minions (e.g. Jinn, Sorceress Familiar etc.) that are untargetable, but these do very little real damage even if a lot of skill points are pumped into them. And we get quests like Hell Baal where if you enter the battle zone with a lot of minions, the boss monster gets hugely amped itself, meaning that summoner-type characters (e.g. Necro) either have to respec to do the fight or are next to helpless as their only real advantage is completely nullified and overwhelmed.

I am honestly not sure how this situation could be fixed, given Median's dependence on the antiquated D2 LoD minion AI routines, which were amazingly sophisticated for a game in the early "aughts" but which are now really showing their age.

One idea that I had (hope the developers are listening...) was, you should be able to set the "aggression level" of Median summons (and the Merc) on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "stick right by the summoner and never attack unless a monster is physically adjacent to the summoner" and 10 is "charge out to attack enemies no matter where they are on the screen (even, go attack things that are off the screen".

You should also be able to set the "breakoff level" (concept borrowed from certain board wargames) where the minion would decide to run away and heal after taking some per centage of its total original health was lost, so (for example) if the summon lost 50% of its life and you had set the breakoff level to "50", the summon would turn and run at that point. And / or, it should be possible to manually determine if minions teleport with you, or if they can be left in a forward location to slow down a mob after you sneakily teleport away. It should be possible to give minions (particularly Mercs) some general targeting directions, e.g. "attack everything according to standard LoD target priorities", "preferentially target trash mobs", "preferentially target bosses", etc., and finally, in the case of the Mercenary, perhaps there should be some way to induce the Merc to use one of its available skills more than others (e.g. tell an A1 Priestess to use her healing skill more than firing Barrage).

I feel that these kinds of very modest adjustments wouldn't be too difficult for the developers to implement and they would at least partly mitigate the issues noted above... what do the rest of you think?

for the love of budda, please learn the game before giving terrible advice. Summons are fine except for specific bosses where the mechanics are not suitable for them, they DO NOT get 1 shotted on most content if properly built. You have videos of summon paladin clearing t9 labs. Also, D2 does not support changing IA on mercs/summons, which means it's probably not supported by the engine.

[Birimbau]

It also blew my mind that summons on this game are not immune/almost immune to area damage, in most ARPG it is the case because summons are dumb as fuck and always die in huge aoe like dumbass because they don't move.

I though median xl devs were ARPG lovers and had a huge ARPG experience ?
Even in diablo 4 it's the case lmao

Among other things you have put your finger on what is by far the biggest issue with Median (and D2 LoD / Remastered) summons, including but not limited to "real" summons but also Mercenaries -- their AI is not only brain-dead but (importantly) cannot be modified in any way, by the player character. So for example if you have summons whose AI is hard-coded by the game engine to suicidally charge forward into certain death at the hands of a boss monster, that's what they'll do no matter what the owning player wants, and then it becomes a race to see if the player can resummon them faster than the boss monster can 1-shot them.

Note that this situation, combined with the ridiculously high amount of damage that most Median bosses (and other super-powered mobs) do, in effect means that "pre-buffing" your summonable minions, is (unlike with vanilla D2 where doing this with minions like the Grizzly and the Valkyrie is an important playing skill), basically pointless. Your Median minions get 1-shotted no matter how much you pre-buff them so there is no point in trying.

Yes, there are some Median minions (e.g. Jinn, Sorceress Familiar etc.) that are untargetable, but these do very little real damage even if a lot of skill points are pumped into them. And we get quests like Hell Baal where if you enter the battle zone with a lot of minions, the boss monster gets hugely amped itself, meaning that summoner-type characters (e.g. Necro) either have to respec to do the fight or are next to helpless as their only real advantage is completely nullified and overwhelmed.

I am honestly not sure how this situation could be fixed, given Median's dependence on the antiquated D2 LoD minion AI routines, which were amazingly sophisticated for a game in the early "aughts" but which are now really showing their age.

One idea that I had (hope the developers are listening...) was, you should be able to set the "aggression level" of Median summons (and the Merc) on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "stick right by the summoner and never attack unless a monster is physically adjacent to the summoner" and 10 is "charge out to attack enemies no matter where they are on the screen (even, go attack things that are off the screen".

You should also be able to set the "breakoff level" (concept borrowed from certain board wargames) where the minion would decide to run away and heal after taking some per centage of its total original health was lost, so (for example) if the summon lost 50% of its life and you had set the breakoff level to "50", the summon would turn and run at that point. And / or, it should be possible to manually determine if minions teleport with you, or if they can be left in a forward location to slow down a mob after you sneakily teleport away. It should be possible to give minions (particularly Mercs) some general targeting directions, e.g. "attack everything according to standard LoD target priorities", "preferentially target trash mobs", "preferentially target bosses", etc., and finally, in the case of the Mercenary, perhaps there should be some way to induce the Merc to use one of its available skills more than others (e.g. tell an A1 Priestess to use her healing skill more than firing Barrage).

I feel that these kinds of very modest adjustments wouldn't be too difficult for the developers to implement and they would at least partly mitigate the issues noted above... what do the rest of you think?

for the love of budda, please learn the game before giving terrible advice. Summons are fine except for specific bosses where the mechanics are not suitable for them, they DO NOT get 1 shotted on most content if properly built. You have videos of summon paladin clearing t9 labs. Also, D2 does not support changing IA on mercs/summons, which means it's probably not supported by the engine.

Then magic was done in PD2 because even necro revives and gear made reanimates have improved AI:


Revives aways follow you without dissapearing like regular skeletons, no need to constant teleport to keep your revives on.

Reanimated Monsters you created follow you through levels: if you have reanimates in Tamoe and go to the Pit, the reanimates will go to pits with you.

[nemmate]

It also blew my mind that summons on this game are not immune/almost immune to area damage, in most ARPG it is the case because summons are dumb as fuck and always die in huge aoe like dumbass because they don't move.

I though median xl devs were ARPG lovers and had a huge ARPG experience ?
Even in diablo 4 it's the case lmao

Among other things you have put your finger on what is by far the biggest issue with Median (and D2 LoD / Remastered) summons, including but not limited to "real" summons but also Mercenaries -- their AI is not only brain-dead but (importantly) cannot be modified in any way, by the player character. So for example if you have summons whose AI is hard-coded by the game engine to suicidally charge forward into certain death at the hands of a boss monster, that's what they'll do no matter what the owning player wants, and then it becomes a race to see if the player can resummon them faster than the boss monster can 1-shot them.

Note that this situation, combined with the ridiculously high amount of damage that most Median bosses (and other super-powered mobs) do, in effect means that "pre-buffing" your summonable minions, is (unlike with vanilla D2 where doing this with minions like the Grizzly and the Valkyrie is an important playing skill), basically pointless. Your Median minions get 1-shotted no matter how much you pre-buff them so there is no point in trying.

Yes, there are some Median minions (e.g. Jinn, Sorceress Familiar etc.) that are untargetable, but these do very little real damage even if a lot of skill points are pumped into them. And we get quests like Hell Baal where if you enter the battle zone with a lot of minions, the boss monster gets hugely amped itself, meaning that summoner-type characters (e.g. Necro) either have to respec to do the fight or are next to helpless as their only real advantage is completely nullified and overwhelmed.

I am honestly not sure how this situation could be fixed, given Median's dependence on the antiquated D2 LoD minion AI routines, which were amazingly sophisticated for a game in the early "aughts" but which are now really showing their age.

One idea that I had (hope the developers are listening...) was, you should be able to set the "aggression level" of Median summons (and the Merc) on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "stick right by the summoner and never attack unless a monster is physically adjacent to the summoner" and 10 is "charge out to attack enemies no matter where they are on the screen (even, go attack things that are off the screen".

You should also be able to set the "breakoff level" (concept borrowed from certain board wargames) where the minion would decide to run away and heal after taking some per centage of its total original health was lost, so (for example) if the summon lost 50% of its life and you had set the breakoff level to "50", the summon would turn and run at that point. And / or, it should be possible to manually determine if minions teleport with you, or if they can be left in a forward location to slow down a mob after you sneakily teleport away. It should be possible to give minions (particularly Mercs) some general targeting directions, e.g. "attack everything according to standard LoD target priorities", "preferentially target trash mobs", "preferentially target bosses", etc., and finally, in the case of the Mercenary, perhaps there should be some way to induce the Merc to use one of its available skills more than others (e.g. tell an A1 Priestess to use her healing skill more than firing Barrage).

I feel that these kinds of very modest adjustments wouldn't be too difficult for the developers to implement and they would at least partly mitigate the issues noted above... what do the rest of you think?

for the love of budda, please learn the game before giving terrible advice. Summons are fine except for specific bosses where the mechanics are not suitable for them, they DO NOT get 1 shotted on most content if properly built. You have videos of summon paladin clearing t9 labs. Also, D2 does not support changing IA on mercs/summons, which means it's probably not supported by the engine.

Then magic was done in PD2 because even necro revives and gear made reanimates have improved AI:


Revives aways follow you without dissapearing like regular skeletons, no need to constant teleport to keep your revives on.

Reanimated Monsters you created follow you through levels: if you have reanimates in Tamoe and go to the Pit, the reanimates will go to pits with you.

Yes, and normally in the New patch (10th april, I think), summons won't dissapear when you "save and exit", and you start a new game

[Diaco]

It also blew my mind that summons on this game are not immune/almost immune to area damage, in most ARPG it is the case because summons are dumb as fuck and always die in huge aoe like dumbass because they don't move.

I though median xl devs were ARPG lovers and had a huge ARPG experience ?
Even in diablo 4 it's the case lmao

Among other things you have put your finger on what is by far the biggest issue with Median (and D2 LoD / Remastered) summons, including but not limited to "real" summons but also Mercenaries -- their AI is not only brain-dead but (importantly) cannot be modified in any way, by the player character. So for example if you have summons whose AI is hard-coded by the game engine to suicidally charge forward into certain death at the hands of a boss monster, that's what they'll do no matter what the owning player wants, and then it becomes a race to see if the player can resummon them faster than the boss monster can 1-shot them.

Note that this situation, combined with the ridiculously high amount of damage that most Median bosses (and other super-powered mobs) do, in effect means that "pre-buffing" your summonable minions, is (unlike with vanilla D2 where doing this with minions like the Grizzly and the Valkyrie is an important playing skill), basically pointless. Your Median minions get 1-shotted no matter how much you pre-buff them so there is no point in trying.

Yes, there are some Median minions (e.g. Jinn, Sorceress Familiar etc.) that are untargetable, but these do very little real damage even if a lot of skill points are pumped into them. And we get quests like Hell Baal where if you enter the battle zone with a lot of minions, the boss monster gets hugely amped itself, meaning that summoner-type characters (e.g. Necro) either have to respec to do the fight or are next to helpless as their only real advantage is completely nullified and overwhelmed.

I am honestly not sure how this situation could be fixed, given Median's dependence on the antiquated D2 LoD minion AI routines, which were amazingly sophisticated for a game in the early "aughts" but which are now really showing their age.

One idea that I had (hope the developers are listening...) was, you should be able to set the "aggression level" of Median summons (and the Merc) on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "stick right by the summoner and never attack unless a monster is physically adjacent to the summoner" and 10 is "charge out to attack enemies no matter where they are on the screen (even, go attack things that are off the screen".

You should also be able to set the "breakoff level" (concept borrowed from certain board wargames) where the minion would decide to run away and heal after taking some per centage of its total original health was lost, so (for example) if the summon lost 50% of its life and you had set the breakoff level to "50", the summon would turn and run at that point. And / or, it should be possible to manually determine if minions teleport with you, or if they can be left in a forward location to slow down a mob after you sneakily teleport away. It should be possible to give minions (particularly Mercs) some general targeting directions, e.g. "attack everything according to standard LoD target priorities", "preferentially target trash mobs", "preferentially target bosses", etc., and finally, in the case of the Mercenary, perhaps there should be some way to induce the Merc to use one of its available skills more than others (e.g. tell an A1 Priestess to use her healing skill more than firing Barrage).

I feel that these kinds of very modest adjustments wouldn't be too difficult for the developers to implement and they would at least partly mitigate the issues noted above... what do the rest of you think?

for the love of budda, please learn the game before giving terrible advice. Summons are fine except for specific bosses where the mechanics are not suitable for them, they DO NOT get 1 shotted on most content if properly built. You have videos of summon paladin clearing t9 labs. Also, D2 does not support changing IA on mercs/summons, which means it's probably not supported by the engine.

Then magic was done in PD2 because even necro revives and gear made reanimates have improved AI:


Revives aways follow you without dissapearing like regular skeletons, no need to constant teleport to keep your revives on.

Reanimated Monsters you created follow you through levels: if you have reanimates in Tamoe and go to the Pit, the reanimates will go to pits with you.

what I mean is changing the AI on the fly, by the player.

[Mr_Bill]

It also blew my mind that summons on this game are not immune/almost immune to area damage, in most ARPG it is the case because summons are dumb as fuck and always die in huge aoe like dumbass because they don't move.

I though median xl devs were ARPG lovers and had a huge ARPG experience ?
Even in diablo 4 it's the case lmao

Among other things you have put your finger on what is by far the biggest issue with Median (and D2 LoD / Remastered) summons, including but not limited to "real" summons but also Mercenaries -- their AI is not only brain-dead but (importantly) cannot be modified in any way, by the player character. So for example if you have summons whose AI is hard-coded by the game engine to suicidally charge forward into certain death at the hands of a boss monster, that's what they'll do no matter what the owning player wants, and then it becomes a race to see if the player can resummon them faster than the boss monster can 1-shot them.

Note that this situation, combined with the ridiculously high amount of damage that most Median bosses (and other super-powered mobs) do, in effect means that "pre-buffing" your summonable minions, is (unlike with vanilla D2 where doing this with minions like the Grizzly and the Valkyrie is an important playing skill), basically pointless. Your Median minions get 1-shotted no matter how much you pre-buff them so there is no point in trying.

Yes, there are some Median minions (e.g. Jinn, Sorceress Familiar etc.) that are untargetable, but these do very little real damage even if a lot of skill points are pumped into them. And we get quests like Hell Baal where if you enter the battle zone with a lot of minions, the boss monster gets hugely amped itself, meaning that summoner-type characters (e.g. Necro) either have to respec to do the fight or are next to helpless as their only real advantage is completely nullified and overwhelmed.

I am honestly not sure how this situation could be fixed, given Median's dependence on the antiquated D2 LoD minion AI routines, which were amazingly sophisticated for a game in the early "aughts" but which are now really showing their age.

One idea that I had (hope the developers are listening...) was, you should be able to set the "aggression level" of Median summons (and the Merc) on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "stick right by the summoner and never attack unless a monster is physically adjacent to the summoner" and 10 is "charge out to attack enemies no matter where they are on the screen (even, go attack things that are off the screen".

You should also be able to set the "breakoff level" (concept borrowed from certain board wargames) where the minion would decide to run away and heal after taking some per centage of its total original health was lost, so (for example) if the summon lost 50% of its life and you had set the breakoff level to "50", the summon would turn and run at that point. And / or, it should be possible to manually determine if minions teleport with you, or if they can be left in a forward location to slow down a mob after you sneakily teleport away. It should be possible to give minions (particularly Mercs) some general targeting directions, e.g. "attack everything according to standard LoD target priorities", "preferentially target trash mobs", "preferentially target bosses", etc., and finally, in the case of the Mercenary, perhaps there should be some way to induce the Merc to use one of its available skills more than others (e.g. tell an A1 Priestess to use her healing skill more than firing Barrage).

I feel that these kinds of very modest adjustments wouldn't be too difficult for the developers to implement and they would at least partly mitigate the issues noted above... what do the rest of you think?

for the love of budda, please learn the game before giving terrible advice. Summons are fine except for specific bosses where the mechanics are not suitable for them, they DO NOT get 1 shotted on most content if properly built. You have videos of summon paladin clearing t9 labs. Also, D2 does not support changing IA on mercs/summons, which means it's probably not supported by the engine.

First of all, the original message poster was (accurately) complaining that his summons get vaporized far too easily, so your belief about summons just being fine and dandy obviously isn't shared by some other Median players (including myself, BTW).

Secondly, your claim about "... if properly built" is misleading, not only because you don't specify what "properly built" actually means, but also -- and this is an issue that I find coming up again and again in Median discussions of this type -- yes, in theory at least, a Median summoner character could MO every last one of his or her items with "minion bonus" type attributes, and could choose nothing but gear that has "+X to minion life / damage / resistances" etc... but in so doing the character would be crippled in many other areas ranging from STR to resists. (Meaning that the monsters would just 1-shot the summoner as opposed to his / her minions. )

I should also note a couple of things which I forgot to mention before, namely that there are also peculiarities about some kinds of Median summons that make their use either inordinately difficult, dangerous or just impossible. Foremost among these is of course the Veil King, a summon that is dangerous in Softcore and out of bounds entirely in Hardcore, due to its delightful little quirk of resurrecting itself and trying to kill its summoner if the Veil King happens to be killed during play. The other is that summons given by items (e.g. Champions of the Sun, Skeletal Flayers, etc.) are even weaker than "normal" (skill-based) ones and are next to useless in the higher difficulty levels, especially in Uberquests. One wonders what the point of creating item abilities like this, really was.

Finally, your comment "...fine except for specific bosses where the mechanics are not suitable..." is the understatement of the Century. Quests like (for example) Hell Baal or some of the other very high-damage bosses are basically impossible for most kinds of summoners, when being run by players with normal human reflexes, unless the character totally respecs for each such quest. Maybe this is considered "Standard Operating Practice" by the developers but I, and I suspect a lot of other Median players, regard it as a bug -- not a feature.