The Truth

posting this here because the interlopers keep scrubbing it from the forums:

don't let the new fishes distract you from the fact that my objectively correct post in this thread was deleted because i used curt language in reply to someone that """disagreed""" with me

regarding the changes themselves:
from an IC perspective it's insane to think that a competent summoner would have some inexplicable mystical force that prevents them from casting magic directly on creatures they summon, and no IC explanation has been introduced (to my knowledge) to justify this limitation nor the introduction of sequencers. you can't expect to hold everyone to an IC-only, roleplay-first standard if you implement changes this impactful without enabling them to explain why things are just different now. this was the same problem with arelith high command waving their hand and disappearing an entire town (i AM still upset about westcliff and since i'll never be unbanned i don't have to pretend to not be anymore)

from an ooc perspective these changes just kneecap casters mechanically, put them at severe disadvantages for no reason other than to literally make things more difficult for them because people (see: like 3 staff members probably) are afraid they can do content too fast or are too self-reliant. in reality it just sucks all the fun out of playing a caster. it also is extremely mind-boggling that runic sequencers are so hard for summoners to get their hands on, and it's extremely new player unfriendly because there's no explanation for it. i've seen several players new to arelith that have to go through a period of extreme confusion and general disappointment when they go to do their first writs in the cordor sewers and find out they can't give their summon a buff to help them out.

the points of contention from my ghosted post were that most people are always going to want to try and run content by themselves. it's unrealistic to expect people to consistently find entire groups of people to do content with all the time. a lot of people don't have the time to invest several hours into the server just for the sake of managing to scrounge up a party to do writs with. what the consensus believed by those running the server seems to be that people roleplay throughout their leveling journey, but speaking as someone who has leveled several characters in the past, has many friends that have, and has many friends that still do, everyone that really roleplays is either at 30 or is rushing towards it. lower-level players, especially ones without dedicated OOC friends, find it very hard to involve themselves with roleplay and the narratives of the server itself if they're not max level.

speaking directly to irongron: the vitriol in the recent update for summoning changes about "rather a lot" being said about summon changes is very telling by the way. maybe you should take people having a lot of opinions on this as a sign that some decisions made might need to be reconsidered, rather than cracking jokes to poke at the people whose opinions you deem invalid. sunken-cost fallacy has killed many, many passion projects in the past, and arelith isn't immune to that just because it's been around a long time.