Originally Posted by
Dingle
I've voiced my opinion in another thread, but I think the core issue is that you've made the game easier - but only for people willing to fork over 5 bucks.
In a quick test, I was able to solo Deeper Wells on Medium with only the gear and stat points gained during the run. So, if we take the summoner from the point of view of an ordinary character, he's plenty viable; balance may be a little off if we pay attention to the hp scaling on his summons - they start out with about half the health of a magic missile tower, but by around 360 minion health, my archers had about 4-5 times the health of the apprentice equivalent (Magic Missile Tower) while dealing slightly better DPS (again, at 360 in the other tower stats) and with the ability to move (which, alone, would be worth another DU for a Magic Missile Tower, but don't forget how much extra HP the archer has...) Spiders seemed to have similar HP scaling, though I haven't taken the time to level to unlock the rest just yet, just using Open to test him with some fixed gear. He'll probably make an excellent wall builder for tight corridors because of the minion health... nevermind that they deal decent damage too.
So, alone, he's definitely going to be viable in the long run. But the fact that his resource (MU) is entirely separate to the normal resource (DU) mean that we've essentially doubled in power - but only if we paid for him. For all the players that aren't interested in the concept, or can't for whatever reason buy him, that's a problem - other people are being allowed to pay for what is essentially an easier game.
The core of the issue is that he's premium content - I know Trendy can't be expected to work for free, but there's no equivalent included in the core game. Including an entirely new resource system which has no conflict with the standard, and making it capable of solo play, completely unbalances the game in favour of those who buy into it. We can beat the game with either method - or use both at the same time.
If the balance issue is considered a problem, the core is the MU system. If we nerf summoner but keep MU, he loses his worth significantly. If we buff the enemies to account for how much stronger a summoner makes the group, we force people to buy summoner or suddenly be unable to complete previous content. If we drop MU, then firstly summoner loses an entire design concept that's actually pretty cool, but also he'll need a complete rebalance again, mainly in his new DU costs.
I'm not necessarily against MU, but there needs to be a non-premium equivalent, or it completely divides the player base. A non-premium character running off MU is necessary if we want to keep MU; else Summoner has to drop it and come to DU with the rest of the characters.
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