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Discussion: Pets

Auriel

Project: Gorgon Game Mod
VIP
Stratics Veteran
I have organized, somewhat, last Saturday's Town Hall and will bring subjects here for further discussion. As the players Saturday learned, the devs want to know our thoughts and wishes. So please feel free to contribute!

PETS

Gremror LOCAL A few of us were saying earlier, that necro skeletons are kinda underpowered, especially the sowrdsman

Admin LOCAL I like to sprinkle some level-ups into those skills, so undead anatomy can give you a couple of free levels of Necromancy

Gremror LOCAL *swordsman

nimor LOCAL 2nd gremror

Dreadz LOCAL no don't do that..lol

nimor LOCAL undead do allmost no dmg

Admin LOCAL yeah they are a little tricky right now, the stock pets are very weak, but you can get some INSANE equipment that makes them pretty powerful

nimor LOCAL not dmg wise

Admin LOCAL though at high level their damage doesn't scale too well, yeah

nimor LOCAL u can get there armor preety high but there dmg is still realy low

Gremror LOCAL Yeah, they increasingly grow weaker and weaker

Admin LOCAL but it's so powerful at low level that it couldn't really keep scaling at that same rate

Admin LOCAL I'll take a look at the base mobs and maybe bump their damage a bit at high level

nimor LOCAL will be nice

Gremror LOCAL Yeah

Admin LOCAL at very low level they are really powerful, but that's not really going to be a problem in the final game, because you can't get Necromancy without beating the toughest boss in the crypt

Dreadz LOCAL also is there a way to make the armor reflect damage taken instead of just being another " health bar"

Admin LOCAL so newbies wont actually have Necromancy, it'll be something you pick up after at least 25-ish levels of something else
 

Pcuvush

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
My question is: Are pets meant to do real damage?
They shine when it comes do do any damage at all when your power is at zero. And they can function as decoy, buying some time killing a crowd of enemies one after the other.

Something that would help is better pet control. I want to be able to set their 'stance' with one click. Like allowing a macro that sets all my pets to stay, follow, guard, or assist. As it is right now I have to click the individual buttons several times to cycle through stances until I reach the one I want. That's very tedious mid fight. It would also help a lot if I could tell them to attack a fixed target. Telling a pet if it should auto defend or not would also be helpful.

I would be interested to know how the different pet types are meant to compare to each other. The stronger pets for now are skeletons and deer, where skeletons receive much better armor and hit point boosts from items. Rat and spider seem to be more like mini pets who have no big impact. With golems I have no experience at all. Are there any others right now?
 

Citan

Project: Gorgon Developer
VIP
Stratics Veteran
The pets that come from a dedicated skill are meant to be reasonably powerful -- well, about one half of your power, since you have two skills. Necromancy is the best example at the moment since it's a dedicated skill; it should be about as powerful as other combat skills like Sword or Fire Magic. Which means the three pets of the Necromancer should sum to the power of Fire Magic attacks. On paper, at least, you get half of your power from those necromancy pets, and half from the other skill you have active.

The other dedicated skill is Animal Handling, which isn't live yet. In that case you have just one pet, so it'll be (on paper) as good as all three necromancy pets... give or take.

(That's a very broad generalization to give you the idea -- in reality it's a lot more complicated; for instance I intentionally gave Necromancers some extra down-sides (annoying casting locations, item requirements) so that I can boost the power of their pets up a bit more than they otherwise would be. And, of course, it's all in alpha and the balance pendulums all over the place as new stuff gets added and new ideas are tried.)

The other pets you mention are add-ons of a melee combat skill -- the Deer skill can summon deer, and a portion of the Deer's total DPS is calculated to come from their deer pets. But not all of it. So, in theory, they would be weaker than the pets of the Animal Handler skill. Same with spider pets. But as you mention, gear plays a big role, and there isn't much gear for these side-abilities at the moment.

The ability to charm rats is a third-bar ability, which has its own "potency chart" (which is just some totally BS fudged numbers I use to try to keep things in the same power range). So a charmed rat would be something like 1.5 Sigils (from the Sigil Scripting skill) in power. Not that great. But basically free.
 

Luka Melehan

Certifiable
Professional
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Patron
The other pets you mention are add-ons of a melee combat skill -- the Deer skill can summon deer, and a portion of the Deer's total DPS is calculated to come from their deer pets.
Do you mean that if a deer player, playing as a deer, has two deer pets, his total DPS his better because of his pets? Or can a player not playing as a deer, but as the deer skill, and summons two deer, is thier DPS higher if another player has summoned deer?
 

Pcuvush

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Do you mean that if a deer player, playing as a deer, has two deer pets, his total DPS his better because of his pets? Or can a player not playing as a deer, but as the deer skill, and summons two deer, is thier DPS higher if another player has summoned deer?
Since I am playing as Deer I can tell you what my experience and opinion on this is.

Player D and player X both have the Deer skill in their first combat bar and Mentalism in their second, both have exactly the same equipment, but only player D is in deer form. Both summon their deer pets. They do exactly the same damage with their mentalism abilities and their summoned deer do exactly the same damage. But since the direct Deer abilities like Deer Kick or Antler Slash can only be used in deer form player X can not use then, while player D can. So player D does more damage than player X.

On the other hand player X may choose to use the Swords skill on his second combat bar, which player D can't, since he has no hands free to use swords abilities. So player X is more versatile. He may choose to use Deer as combat skill if he wants summoned deer, but can't use any other Deer combat ability. He may also choose to not use the Deer skill and has the full selection of skills available, where player D has only like half the combat abilities as an option.

Using Deer as combat ability while not in deer form is probably not really efficient..
 
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