What is the rationale for giving NPCs the ability to summon?

It was more than just kiting, though kiting was an issue. There was also the abuse of bad pathing. Summon was a way to fix several issues at once. Like you said, you don't have to have 100% of mobs do it.

One change I would like to see is when a mob gates, its aggro list wipes. Either that or mobs that can gate can't summon, one of the two. Less of an issue for me now that I box my group, but when you play with a group of semi-bad regular people, a mob gating can ruin your day.

It makes sense for certain enemies. Summoning also takes away the option of fleeing, or makes it a lot more difficult, anyway. I wondered why they didn't just give other mobs they didn't want to be easily kitable partial immunity to snares and roots. or maybe they did? I'm not as knowledgable about the game as many here. I just resubbed yesterday after a couple of years away. Last I played was aradune.

Thanks for pointing this out. I was thinking more along the lines of player abilities that would interrupt summoning during combat.

I think you are on to something about summoning mobs being used to discourage kiting as reason the devs introduced it. But I think it wasn't a very elegant solution. You mentioned giants being farmed. I don't recall that Hill Giants have the ability to summon except Cazel in South Ro.

Quad kiting is a legitimate soloing technique that used to be used by wizards and druids back in the old days and is still used on P1999. After all they gave these classes all the abilities to do this. How then can they be doing something wrong when they are playing their class intelligently? I don't think quad kiting was creating problems that warranted some kind of nerfage from the devs.

There are far more problems created by power leveling than the perceived problems created when a few classes that could kite mobs.

The real problem with kiting was bard swarm kiting where bards could kite most of the zone and it would be monopolizing all of the spawns at the expense of others. They implemented summoning mobs years before they finally addressed swarm kiting which was as far bigger disruption to other player's gameplay.

That said, in the first year of EverQuest, the devs frequently utilized a misguided slogan that certain forms of PVE tactics were "not intended." At the time, the devs had little appreciation of the concept of emergent behavior such as FD mob splitting, fear kiting, and quad kiting. Just because we were in their world now they wanted us all to play their way. The rookie devs believed that everyone should be grouping and didn't take kindly to soloers.

As the expansions progressed, they realized their mistake and eventually allowed more soloing. As evidence of this, they even created a completely self-sufficient class the Beastlord

I don't think kiting is a problem today. But if if a dev believes it was, in hindsight a better solution to make kiting a bit more difficult would be to include random caster NPCs that pause to cast root, stun and DOT. These mobs are impossible to kite effectively. Druid mobs are particularly deadly as many players have found out with those pesky Brownie Scouts in Lesser Faydark ambushing them.

In the Plane of Storms, the designer created a healthy number of trees and bears that are druids that are impossible to kite. Both of those mobs do not summon which is reasonable because caster mobs are overpowered by their nature. The non-casting trees and bears do summon there was really no need for them to have that ability given the social nature of the bears, trees, snakes in PoS. The result is that nobody kites in PoS and practically nobody grinds experience there except a few druids who solo frogs with charmed frogs.

The unintended consequences of summoning mobs is that most players just ignore them completely and move to zones where the risk vs. reward equation is more favorable to players and the mobs do not summon. Considering all of the hard work that goes into the art assets and zone creation, it's a real shame to have so much content wasted and ignored by players

It started in Kunark (I remember it). They didn't want kiting classes to solo outdoor bosses.

Mobs should not have the ability to summon if they are under your level, or at least if they are grey con. Running through a GoD zone and being chain summoned by 20 grey cons that are half my level is ridiculous.

Honestly, I feel like warriors should get an AA ability equal to Summon. It's been overdue for 17 years.

Dont damage the mobs and they won't summon you!

The rationale behind summoning was that players were killing mobs from a place the NPCs couldn't path to in Plane of Hate so as a temporary measure mobs were given the ability to summon to counteract this tactic.

The worst part is when you are trying to mess with a pile of VT trash or any other likewise group of mobs that summon and you try to move them. They each summon you back one at a time as you keep backing away to try and reposition them 2 inches to the left to accomodate aoes and such.

That and the stupid garbage call of the zero spell used in NTOV.... stop summoning me! I'm already in melee range!

Perhaps we should be able to toggle off ripostes if we aren't attacking. Same with damage shields embedded into certain buffs.

They did nerf riposte recently in some very big way that mitigates this. As for DS, yeah if you're yoloing through a zone you just click em off. My best guess is if you're trying to avoid mobs you don't need to increase your dps.