Imbuing Pets

[Metalstorm]

Zyon Rockler, I want to thank you for starting this thread.

It may not be going exactly where you were hoping but it's certainly spawning many ideas.

It's rather inspiring

 

[Zyon Rockler]

The barding deeds are no good. They don't last long enough. I was killing a parra bally and I had 2 fall off. They need to last much longer to be of any usefulness, unless you plan on carrying 10 or 20 in your pack. This is a completely different idea. It's not really a middle ground.

If you put armour on a pet that is imbued or if you put it on a pet that is tamed or if you put it on a pet that is bonded, it would not make a difference. It would still be armour being put on a pet.

I don't understand what the problem is with enhancing a living creature. Look at our diets. We enhance ourselves by eating right. We can take vitamins and steroids to change who we are and what we look like. In the future we will be able to take genes and splice them. Noahs Arch could of very well been genes contained in a space ship, not necessarily a big boat filled with every known animal in the world. The gene scope could of been split and targeted to reform, using different types of species that existed on our planet.

We enhance animals, we tailor them to what we want them to be used for. Look what we do with our livestock and our cows, our vegetables and our fruit. Look at the different diseases that we create that shape our very immune systems. Look at the bio hazard weapons that we create to destroy what is alive. Look at our nuclear power that eridicates our cells. Imagine the changes we've made to our environment with West Niles disease. We don't only alter what is living but we destroy it.

To imbue something is quite the opposite. It is to take a piece of your sole and place it within something else, like people who believe there is intelligence other than themselves. I know it's far reaching but armour is just a simple protection. Imbuing is a form of life creation.

 

[Metalstorm]

Stop throwing real life logic into a fantasy based discussion! lol

I totally get what you're saying but, reflecting back on UO's history I have a hunch that if pets were to be made imbuable (is that a word?), within six months to a year they'd be nerfed to the groin.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

Well the problem is they constantly nerf the fun. They need to learn to allow some types of over powering to allow for more hit point damage. They need to increase the hit points across the board. So, to evolve to the next plato, rather than making everything weaker, you simply add hit points. This allows characters to recover from something that is over powered and makes the imbalance necessary.

For example: If you have a greater dragon that breathes fire and it does 100 hit points and people say, wow that greater dragon is really over powered, by adding a few hit points to where they would survive, they say, wow that dragon is powerful, rather than nerfing the dragon and making it worthless or mondain.

 

[Konge]

Um there is only one pet in UO that can exceed 120 skills the greater dragon. All others can only gm skills.

Someone has no idea how pet skills are determined. The max a pet can gain in any skill is 90% of what it was when it was wild, so, if the pet's wild skill is over 100, it can gain over 100 from training.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I've talked to many many UO vets who have said the taming system is one of the very best things that UO has to offer

Yeah yeah, just because a few vets say so doesn't make any less true. I've had just as many vets say its stale and crappy in many ways. And I have lots of tamers, yet I still think its stale and crappy in many ways, despite playing a tamer often.

Tamer templates aren't the most powerful templates in any context in UO, so why do so many play them? Because they are fun to play. That's certainly why I play them.

They're pretty easy to play and has for quite a while been amongst the powerful templates out there.

And yes, I love farming for pets.

And this makes any sense to you? Do you run around farming pets in real life to find the perfect Fido?

I know you like having everything handed to you LC

Ah yes, when all else fails, resort to basic meaningless made up insults. No, I don't like everything handed to me, I like having fun in the game and I like for systems to evolve, get better, learn from other systems. Not stay mired up in an old mindset which has been crappy from the get go.

but I enjoy the challenge of farming pets

LOL, its not a challenge. Its just sheer luck or enough ebayed cash. Heck I got a just about perfect stats GD after just 5 minutes looking..wow, what a challenge.

and finding those truly excellent pets that are worthy of a great stable. Anything remotely resembling imbuing for pets would destroy that.

While I am not for this idea per se, its better than status quo. (there was a lot better idea up on the old boards) It wouldn't destroy it, you could still go gather the perfect stat pet and get something out of it, it would just no longer be just you trying to be the "ultimate and right" tamer.

And there's another reason why I love farming for pets, and maybe its one the reasons you are trying to get rid of that particular joy of mine. I don't know of any way to script farming for pets.

LOL, there are several scripts that auto compares pets you get near to see if they're good stats and worthy to keep. I don't know why you'd be lying about something like this, but perhaps you have som ulterior motive.

 

[canary]

Ah yes, when all else fails, resort to basic meaningless made up insults. No, I don't like everything handed to me, I like having fun in the game and I like for systems to evolve, get better, learn from other systems. Not stay mired up in an old mindset which has been crappy from the get go.

God, I hope you realize the utter irony of it being you that made this statement. rolleyes:

 

[Lord Chaos]

God, I hope you realize the utter irony of it being you that made this statement. rolleyes:

There's no irony when its on purpose. I recognize the tactics quite well because I deploy it myself sometimes.

 

[Llewen]

Ah yes, when all else fails, resort to basic meaningless made up insults. No, I don't like everything handed to me...

God, I hope you realize the utter irony of it being you that made this statement. rolleyes:

There's no irony when its on purpose. I recognize the tactics quite well because I deploy it myself sometimes.

There's a not-so-subtle difference between you and I in this regard LC, when I resort to a "basic meaningless made up insult", it generally is actually based on something. You have an extensive posting record on these forums supporting and defending scripted game play. People who use scripts, or who think that their use is a good thing, are generally people who don't want to play the game the way it was intended to be played, they want to make the game easier.

Even better if they can make it easier for themselves while it continues to be harder for the honest players in this world. And it isn't just your record of posting with regard to scripting that I based my "meaningless made up insult" on. You have pretty consistently posted in favour of reducing the challenge in game play in UO every time the opportunity has arisen, as you are doing in this thread.

You have often used the word "fun", but what you don't seem to realize is that without challenge there is no fun. The more you reduce challenge in a game, in general the less fun it becomes. It's part of the nature of game playing. Golf is fun because it is challenging. Baseball is fun because it is challenging. Playing through Half-Life 2 from beginning to end without resorting to cheats is fun precisely because it is challenging. If everyone could do it the first time in five minutes, while drunk, the game would get "teH SuCkeH" rating just as quickly.

Your desire to dumb down UO and make it as laughably easy as possible has nothing to do with "fun", and everything to do with laziness and a strong desire to find shortcuts for just about everything, if your posting record on Stratics is any indication of your true personality.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

I still have trouble understanding the problem or the arguement. Whether or not you can imbue a pet has nothing to do with scripting. The script is still there in the current system and until it is removed, we need to accept it as part of the game.

The script itself, from what your describing, allows someone to see what's on a pet, animal lore does the same thing and if your going to tame and control any animal you would need animal lore. So, the process is still the same. You still need to kill greater dragons to make another greater dragon spawn that is better.

So, I don't see how the process would be any easier. We're not talking about scripting issues, we're talking about imbuing animals. How would this be easier if we're taking the system we already have, meaning you would still have to do everything you do now, plus you would have to do more.

Maybe, to begin the process, you would need a soul sphere that rarely spawns on a paragon balron, say maybe 1 out of 200. So, how do you consider this easy? How can you place a value on something that hasn't even been created yet or that you haven't tried?

You might need to go and find ostards in T2A and collect 50 tails so that you could add a new type of move, pets with tails would use.

You might have the ability to remove certain attributes or skills, to add different ones but you would need some kind of magic transformation gel that could only be found on shadow wyrms. Maybe 1 in 100 would produce this.

I don't understand how this is all so easy or how it's possible to script. If it would be possible to script all of this, it would be like having these amazing NPCs running around. I honestly think scripting is nowhere near capable of doing what a player can do and I think it will stay like that for the next 20 years at least.

 

[Garm The Green]

Horrible thread, silly ideas, bitterness about the best beastmaster system I've come across in an MMO.

Absolute non-sense, can't believe i read so much of it.

And soul, not sole dude. That's the bottom of a shoe

Ain't broke don't fix, unlike many other things us tamers are doing swell )

 

[adester]

I see how this can have some kind of ground in tinkering. You could create a mechanical pet and imbue it with things. If you want you can create its over and over until it has the preimbue stats you want then imbue it.

I would have to disagree on the taming part tho.

 

[Sergul'zan_SP]

If we could do this then we should be able to imbue our characters too!!!!!!

 

[Petra Fyde]

And yes, I love farming for pets.

And this makes any sense to you? Do you run around farming pets in real life to find the perfect Fido?

Yes, actually, people do. Those people who want the best pedigree will check breeding records and bloodlines to find just the one they want. Isn't that the same thing?

I don't farm pets myself. It's not a requirement. UO is a sandbox remember, you do what you want to do.

I'll lore the pets in the region and pick the best one that's around, but I don't believe it's necessary to have the very best pet to have an effective fighting companion.
I name my pets carefully and consider them 'partners' in a hunt not 'weapons'. I do it that way, because that's the way I choose to play the game.

I don't believe there is any fundamental reason to change the way taming works in UO. But then I've always believed that it's up to the player to learn how to play the game, not the developer to tailor the game to each individual player's abilities and attitudes.

 

[Llewen]

I see how this can have some kind of ground in tinkering. You could create a mechanical pet and imbue it with things. If you want you can create its over and over until it has the preimbue stats you want then imbue it.

I could see imbuing tinkered pets yes, as long as attention was payed to game balance. However, given the number of people that actually use them, I'm not sure they would be worth the effort. Although who knows, maybe if there were a bit better, they would see more use.

But then there is the whole issue of bonding with tinkered pets. Tinkered pets don't bond, so who is going to spend hundreds of hours, and potentially millions of gold pieces worth of ingredients, imbuing a tinkered pet that will be gone the first time it dies?

 

[Lord Chaos]

Yes, actually, people do. Those people who want the best pedigree will check breeding records and bloodlines to find just the one they want. Isn't that the same thing?

Uhm no, not at all. If you want the best pedigree, you don't go to a show and the slaugther every pet there until you find what you want.

I don't farm pets myself. It's not a requirement. UO is a sandbox remember, you do what you want to do.

No, its not, exactly the point.

I'll lore the pets in the region and pick the best one that's around, but I don't believe it's necessary to have the very best pet to have an effective fighting companion.

Thats fine and all, its still not how the game is set up and how most tamers play, you can't act like you represent all tamers.

I name my pets carefully and consider them 'partners' in a hunt not 'weapons'. I do it that way, because that's the way I choose to play the game.

I don't believe there is any fundamental reason to change the way taming works in UO. But then I've always believed that it's up to the player to learn how to play the game, not the developer to tailor the game to each individual player's abilities and attitudes.

Thats your belief and you're welcome to it, as long as you don't just sit stubbornly in a corner preventing any new thinking in the area.

The devs already control the game and how we do things, we are generally forced into certain behaviors and mindsets. Too bad I like UO and other games are generally sucky in other areas, or damn, they have much better systems for pets/taming. Heck, even in WoW, the pets would feel so much more alive and part of you as a team than any UO pet ever could.

 

[Lord Chaos]

There's a not-so-subtle difference between you and I in this regard LC

There apparently is no difference, anything I have ever said to you (deleted or otherwise) is backed by your extensive posting record.

Other than that, strawman much?

You have often used the word "fun", but what you don't seem to realize is that without challenge there is no fun.

Oh really, so hand dishwashing and washing by hand is the true fun and we should dispose of all dishwasher machines and washing machines?

In fact, heck, we should dispose of computer games and go out and play in nature, as its so much more of a challenge.

ALL IN THE NAME OF FUN!

LOL

Just because something is made easier doesn't make it less fun, it often makes it MORE fun, as all through history has proven. Laziness is the mother of all invention as they say. To reduce annoying obstacles, increase variety and expand gameplay makes the game MORE fun.

It's part of the nature of game playing. Golf is fun because it is challenging. Baseball is fun because it is challenging. Playing through Half-Life 2 from beginning to end without resorting to cheats is fun precisely because it is challenging. If everyone could do it the first time in five minutes, while drunk, the game would get "teH SuCkeH" rating just as quickly.

So golf would be improved if flamethrowers, minefields and wild tigers were added...because right, the more of a challenge, the more fun it is for people. Why do you think you have varied levels of play in all of those sports?

Secondly, those are COMPETITIVE sports, aka. Not at all the same as an MMO, its alike to FPS like Counterstrike. But then again, you've always seemed like this Counterstrike player with your crappy attitude.

Your desire to dumb down UO and make it as laughably easy as possible has nothing to do with "fun", and everything to do with laziness and a strong desire to find shortcuts for just about everything, if your posting record on Stratics is any indication of your true personality.

I will refrain from giving you your indicators. rolleyes: I have no desire to dumb down UO, I want it to be fun and relaxing, as an MMO should be. And again, laziness is a GOOD thing, finding shortcuts is a GOOD thing. Its how the great society we're in today exist, heck its how UO exists...without people like me, Bill Gates, Richard Garriot and others who thinks in finding shortcuts to goal, then none of this would be here and you'd be playing "dodge the rock" thrown at you in the school yard.

 

[Uvtha]

For example: If you have a greater dragon that breathes fire and it does 100 hit points and people say, wow that greater dragon is really over powered, by adding a few hit points to where they would survive, they say, wow that dragon is powerful, rather than nerfing the dragon and making it worthless or mondain.

So basically what you are saying is: X causes an imbalance in a specific context. It makes more sense to create a new, wider, and more serious imbalance, than to fix imbalance X.

I see.

 

[Uvtha]

Thats your belief and you're welcome to it, as long as you don't just sit stubbornly in a corner preventing any new thinking in the area.

The devs already control the game and how we do things, we are generally forced into certain behaviors and mindsets. Too bad I like UO and other games are generally sucky in other areas, or damn, they have much better systems for pets/taming. Heck, even in WoW, the pets would feel so much more alive and part of you as a team than any UO pet ever could.

Just because taming could use an update (which I agree about) doesn't mean that its not ok to say you think an idea is bad.

Imbuing for pets would be silly. For one thing its completely uncreative, and would be imbalanced, to just slap one system onto another system that was completely not considered in its creation.

Pet breeding would make more sense within the context of the world, and while the concept is pretty basic, it's not something you see in games other than pokemon (which is something I enjoy ).

I for one don't think taming needs to be any more POWERFUL, but it could use a dose of variation, and a helping of personalization. By that I mean it would be good to see more than the very tiny handful of pets that are commonly used, and that even if there were two dragons, they may be different types of dragon, even though they look the same.

In closing, allow me to easily express how "imbuing" would destroy balance if applied to pets.

If there is anything like, damage increase, hit spell, hit lower anything, high resist bonuses, or large health bonuses... just imagine a pack of hell hounds, or a pack of frenzied each with and EXTRA 50% damage, Hit spell, each with 150 hps, and potentially high resists in two categories left over. Or even just up dci, health, and resists. Or even just 5 resists at 70.

Unstoppable killing power light years beyond the most powerful sampire with 500 million in uber event drop gear.

Bad idea.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Yes, actually, people do. Those people who want the best pedigree will check breeding records and bloodlines to find just the one they want. Isn't that the same thing?

Uhm no, not at all. If you want the best pedigree, you don't go to a show and the slaugther every pet there until you find what you want.

I still maintain it is the RL equivelant.

I don't farm pets myself. It's not a requirement. UO is a sandbox remember, you do what you want to do.

No, its not, exactly the point.

I stand by what I said. It is not a requirement to farm for the best pets, you do that only if you wish to. I don't and have a reasonably effective tamer that I enjoy playing

I'll lore the pets in the region and pick the best one that's around, but I don't believe it's necessary to have the very best pet to have an effective fighting companion.

Thats fine and all, its still not how the game is set up and how most tamers play, you can't act like you represent all tamers.

Agreed - and the same can be said of you.

I name my pets carefully and consider them 'partners' in a hunt not 'weapons'. I do it that way, because that's the way I choose to play the game. I don't believe there is any fundamental reason to change the way taming works in UO. But then I've always believed that it's up to the player to learn how to play the game, not the developer to tailor the game to each individual player's abilities and attitudes.

Thats your belief and you're welcome to it, as long as you don't just sit stubbornly in a corner preventing any new thinking in the area.

I am preventing nothing, I am presenting my own view, which disagrees radically with yours.

The devs already control the game and how we do things, we are generally forced into certain behaviors and mindsets. Too bad I like UO and other games are generally sucky in other areas, or damn, they have much better systems for pets/taming. Heck, even in WoW, the pets would feel so much more alive and part of you as a team than any UO pet ever could.

Again, I disagree with you totally. I do not feel forced into any particular behaviour or mindset. I set my own goals, I tame my own way - I didn't, for example, train the skill in the accepted way on polar bears, great harts etc. I trained on aggressives, from Scorpions to giant spiders and the like. It's more fun when your target is chasing you than vice versa. I don't tame greater dragons using honor - you can, but it's less fun and doesn't have the same sense of achievement when you succeed as when taming them with direct peace. Easy = boring.
And that's all I have to say, you can twist my words to mean something totally different to what I actually said, as usual. I won't reply again.

 

[Splup]

Lord Chaos there's a slight difference between challenging and dangerous rolleyes:

And then there's the next to impossible challenging like some NES games which are just too hard.

Games are not supposed to be too easy, cause it gets boring really fast. Neither should they be too hard cause then it's pure frustrating. You gotta find the middle path here... Comparing challenging considering taming to walking over landmines is kinda rubbish mate.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Just because taming could use an update (which I agree about) doesn't mean that its not ok to say you think an idea is bad.

I completely agree.

Imbuing for pets would be silly. For one thing its completely uncreative, and would be imbalanced, to just slap one system onto another system that was completely not considered in its creation.

I agree.

Pet breeding would make more sense within the context of the world, and while the concept is pretty basic, it's not something you see in games other than pokemon (which is something I enjoy ).

Or pet training that would require more than just banging stuff. But yes, agreed.

Heck, I really believe that all tamables should be breedable as an alternative to taming them, they would just require a lot more training and taking care of to get it to a fully good pet.

All aspects of a pet should be trainable.

I for one don't think taming needs to be any more POWERFUL, but it could use a dose of variation, and a helping of personalization. By that I mean it would be good to see more than the very tiny handful of pets that are commonly used, and that even if there were two dragons, they may be different types of dragon, even though they look the same.

I agree.

In closing, allow me to easily express how "imbuing" would destroy balance if applied to pets.

I am agreeing with you. Pets should not be much more powerful than they are now and be limited to the abilties that already exists.

(No, I don't want to see a 1000 HP Goat with firebreath, Pack Instinct, HLD, HLA, HSL, 50% DI, 30% SSI, etc. hehehehe)

If there is anything like, damage increase, hit spell, hit lower anything, high resist bonuses, or large health bonuses... just imagine a pack of hell hounds, or a pack of frenzied each with and EXTRA 50% damage, Hit spell, each with 150 hps, and potentially high resists in two categories left over. Or even just up dci, health, and resists. Or even just 5 resists at 70.

Unstoppable killing power light years beyond the most powerful sampire with 500 million in uber event drop gear.

I completely agree.

See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

 

[Zyon Rockler]

So basically what you are saying is: X causes an imbalance in a specific context. It makes more sense to create a new, wider, and more serious imbalance, than to fix imbalance X.

I see.

This is not what I said at all. In the beginning, there were alot of weak types of spawns and alot of weak characters. In my opinion, it made for very mondain game play. You might say, "Why, it's fun to be weak and inadequate," but I don't believe this. I never did and I never will. It has always been my opinion that the fights do not last long enough and that they lack challenge and intelligence.

The one hit wonders are a complete physcological ploy to convince you that you are doing something fun, when in actuality, your just doing the same thing over and over. For example: Which would be more logical to you? If an orc hits you for 50 points and you have 40 hit points should you lower the orcs hit point ability or raise your hit points so you can take the hit?

If a fight lasts one second, should you make the fight longer or shorter? When you start dealing with caps and game mechanics it shows that it is a problem on the designer's end because it is impossible to survive. In any game, it should never be impossible or it becomes pointless, almost. Sure the first couple of times you run to the healer it is fun but after the 560th time, it is showing that there is something wrong.

I would like to see PvP battles, where 1 man could stand up to 5 men because to me, it would make him a challenge. Why should 3 people be able to pop out of no where and be able to kill a man, no matter what he does or who he is, simply because of the calculated hit points. For example: If you figure a person has 150 hit points and you put together a team of people who can do the 150 hit points with one shot, then how do you consider this balanced? It's simply calculated.

Balance is when you face somebody with skill and they're able to beat those odds. So, by simply adding more hit points you could eliminate the gank, at least that would be part of it and to me things would be more fun because alot more would have to happen before someone died.

 

[Uvtha]

When you just power things up all that does is mean that new content needs to be more powerful, or whats the point? If I can easily solo anything in game... The power spiral is a serious issue, and something you need to guard against. Some things SHOULD be more powerful than the player. A lot more. Thats the point.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

What I really liked about Animal Taming in WoW...I only had to find the rare pet in its region, then tame it and it would be mine...then I had a great companien for me.

And it would level with me and go further up in skills and get better skills as yours improve.

UO's taming system is sad.

Reminds me of the time I was looking for rare pets to kill [Achievement] and these people were trying to tame a rare pet, they failed at it, it reset, and I knocked it off with a barrage of arcane spells. =D
All their shrill pancakes was silenced by my shiny new achievement.

 

[It Lives]

Imbuing pets is still a bad Idea, it will never happen IMO.

Imbuing pets would become a requirement to compete(bad Idea).

They need to focus on unique pets, perhaps utilizing the Chicken lizard system.

Expanding that system to Raise Pets wildly different and so forth.

Maybe even a system much like the current plant system only with pets and their appearance/function, rather than plant type and color.

At this point I believe only optional type changes should be made to taming, forcing people into game play changes is counter productive.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

Hit points need to be increased across the board equally. This controls what you call balance and allows for everything to be more of a fight. As new content is added, it should be made so that it doesn't over-power the player but is challenging.

This is a discussion of taming ideas. It doesn't matter if they're good or bad or they will be or will never be. The important thing is to understand the possibilities because it is not what you want, it is what is possible. So, that is the key factor and obviously, since we have imbuing, this would be possible, just not exactly like the imbuing system for weapons.

For example: If you were going to imbue a pet and you had the ingredient to imbue it with, you might simply just add color to the pet or you might add an ability that it does not possess.

Nothing has really been written down saying, "This is how things will be" but now is your chance to express other possibilities so that we have more options. It's obvious that this idea has already come in many forms and the seeds that were planted have already grown into trees, it is only they have yet to grow fruit.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

The idea of breeding or using the plant system type would be an awesome idea or addition to the pet system but it is still a system that could co-exist. It doesn't make imbuing a pet any less a good idea.