Idea: Pet bonding time based on skill.

[Coragin]

Before some people start throwing a hissy fit and hitting reply without reading this, my suggestion only effects tames that are UNDER 99 Taming.

After starting on a new shard for awhile now, I got to thinking while training up a tamer. Having my tames get killed and having to wait a week for a fresh tame I want to keep is a long time for a new tamer with no bonded pets at all. And new players trying the game for the first time, well you can count on them never getting to see a bonded pet before their trial runs out. So here is my (very quickly thrown together) suggestion. Have your pets bonding times be based on the skill required to tame them. Then newer younger tamers would have a chance to go out and fight some things closer to their level and not have to wait forever to have a boura or beetle bond.

Time : Skill Required to Tame
1 days: 0-60
2 days: 61-90
4 days: 91-99
7 days: 100+

 

[Uvtha]

They might as well just ditch the idea all together. It's fairly pointless really. It's not like the wait period teaches players anything, or even offers the illusion of bonding with your virtual pet since everyone just tames and stables for a week.

All it really does is prevent people from playing with the pet they just tamed. Needless hindrance to the fun.

 

[Kiminality]

They might as well just ditch the idea all together. It's fairly pointless really. It's not like the wait period teaches players anything, or even offers the illusion of bonding with your virtual pet since everyone just tames and stables for a week.

All it really does is prevent people from playing with the pet they just tamed. Needless hindrance to the fun.

Bonding always felt like an artificial system to me.
Its implementation just seems forced, and the way it ends up working is just a joke. I have been using unbonded pets lately, since I'm waiting for my Cu to bond, but that's basically because I otherwise would have to mothball my tamer for a week. But if I didn't have to choose between using the unbonded Cu, or not using the tamer, the poor dog wouldn't see the light of day.
If you have any other choice, then there's absolutely no reason to use a pet while you're waiting for it to bond.

If anything, Bonding should be a minigame.
Something like with plants, where you could use animal lore to see whether your pet's happy or sad, hungry, ill... I'm just winging this idea, but you should have to actually "cultivate" your bond with the pet.

 

[Mitzlplik_SP]

That`d be great for us no skill tamers. My 85 tame/disco tamer on LS could bond pets in 2 days. That`d rock.

I don`t think its needed really. If their playing trial accounts they prolly ain`t thinking about when will their pets bond.Chances are they wouldn`t even know about the bonding thing if they are brand new to game and on a trial account.

 

[Uvtha]

If anything, Bonding should be a minigame.
Something like with plants, where you could use animal lore to see whether your pet's happy or sad, hungry, ill... I'm just winging this idea, but you should have to actually "cultivate" your bond with the pet.

If you ask me, there should be something like a bonded level, pets are "bonded" upon taming, but the more you travel and hunt with them they change their attitude about you (depending on what you do, and how you treat it as well as time together), which could lead to a universe of bonuses, rewards, and other fun stuff.

A pet BREEDING mini game would be awesome as well.

 

[KalVasTENKI]

They might as well just ditch the idea all together. It's fairly pointless really. It's not like the wait period teaches players anything, or even offers the illusion of bonding with your virtual pet since everyone just tames and stables for a week.

All it really does is prevent people from playing with the pet they just tamed. Needless hindrance to the fun.

Agreed.

 

[aarons6]

i agree, the pet should bond as soon as you feed it after its tame..
its not like keeping it in the stable for a week does anything..

i killed off like 300 cus to get one good one and then i gotta wait a week before it bonds, the whole time i use "junk" fresh tamed ones until they die, where i go and just tame another one... why cant i just feed and bond my good one and use that one instead.

 

[KalVasTENKI]

i agree, the pet should bond as soon as you feed it after its tame..
its not like keeping it in the stable for a week does anything..

i killed off like 300 cus to get one good one and then i gotta wait a week before it bonds, the whole time i use "junk" fresh tamed ones until they die, where i go and just tame another one... why cant i just feed and bond my good one and use that one instead.

Indeed.

 

[Fink]

If anything, Bonding should be a minigame.
Something like with plants, where you could use animal lore to see whether your pet's happy or sad, hungry, ill... I'm just winging this idea, but you should have to actually "cultivate" your bond with the pet.

If you ask me, there should be something like a bonded level, pets are "bonded" upon taming, but the more you travel and hunt with them they change their attitude about you (depending on what you do, and how you treat it as well as time together), which could lead to a universe of bonuses, rewards, and other fun stuff.

A pet BREEDING mini game would be awesome as well.

I like these ideas.

Most pets only gets two meals in its life one week apart and then they're never maintained again. Some sort of ongoing care would be a decent trade-off for the benefits of bonding, now that their deaths are entirely meaningless with the introduction of npc vets.

 

[Warpig Inc]

The pet bonding to as said seem artificial. Here is something would give bonding some life. I would say the days it takes a pet to bond be based on every ten points of barding difficulty. And how many days prebonded that a pet is actively trained would raise the random generated aspects of the pet randomly. Yes that be playing with the R word twice of the RNG, nasty.

As the system is there is plenty to do with a fresh pet needing a week. The pet needs training and not be tossed under the heals of a DF hours after taming. I use the Vorpral Bunnies for training start. Good leather off Gaman. And plenty plp know places to raise resist magic. Moonglow Graveyard for one.

The many years that you have to play UO what is a week really?

 

[Cirno]

The many years that you have to play UO what is a week really?

A little over a week before the end of the Magincia invasion, I read a suggestion that a hiryu would be a good pet to use
That was a very long week

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Personally I would rather see a system where you actually have to hunt with a fresh pet and keep it alive in order for it to bond. The higher the fame/difficulty of the critter the faster the pet bonds. Keep it at 7 days for lower level critters.

Just like in life, pets should not bond to a master until that master shows it will take care of it and keep it alive.

 

[Miriandel]

They might as well just ditch the idea all together. It's fairly pointless really. It's not like the wait period teaches players anything, or even offers the illusion of bonding with your virtual pet since everyone just tames and stables for a week.

All it really does is prevent people from playing with the pet they just tamed. Needless hindrance to the fun.

You hit the nail on the head.

There are some obsolete mechanics in this game which needs simply removed, like the 6 hours timer on BoDs (everybody makes alts to get BoDs and reset the timer) and the 20 minutes timer on faction stat loss (everybody makes multiple characters and macro the stat loss out, or have multiple accounts).
Probably some others, but those are easy to get rid of, for a better gaming experience.
Maybe keep 5 minutes stat loss for faction, I don't play on a crowded shards so i don't know what impact it can have on huge battles. But nowadays... huge battles... well...

 

[Uvtha]

Personally I would rather see a system where you actually have to hunt with a fresh pet and keep it alive in order for it to bond. The higher the fame/difficulty of the critter the faster the pet bonds. Keep it at 7 days for lower level critters.

Just like in life, pets should not bond to a master until that master shows it will take care of it and keep it alive.

Cept for the fact that you are bonding to it so you know that its ok for it to die. In a world where death is meek at best, I don't see why the pet should care. In the game world a pet should know full well its going to be killed (especially if its one of those pets with 5x your intelligence like a GD) when they decided to accept to team up with you.

As for the "Youve played for years, whats a week?" comment above, I don't see the point in that sort of thinking.

Things that serve no purpose (other than to hinder people playing and having fun) have no place in this game, or any other well designed game for that matter. Pet bonding, more than many many many other obsolete systems, is wholly pointless, in both a functional and thematic sense, for reasons I already mentioned.