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Idea - Temperamental Pets

S

siyeng0

Guest
Note: I'm not a PvPer.

That said, I've spoken to the odd PvPer on occasion about pets in player battles. I got a lot of angry froth and spit all over me (even from the people who played the tamers doing all the 'all kill'-ing!) Pets are overpowered in PvP - a greater dragon can two-hit-kill someone in all 70s armour, and even if they move quite slowly it still makes it very difficult to get near their tamer, who more likely than not will be hurling fireballs at the same time, in order to kill them - and it takes no skill whatsoever to hit a macro for "all kill." Someone on a mount can outrun a greater dragon (although pathfinding is peculiar for animals; I've been hit by fireballs from a dragon two screens away through a solid wall before) but seriously, nobody enjoys having to run away from things. Nobody. Even I don't enjoy it, and it hasn't been so long since I had to run away from hinds*.

So. When in Felucca, why not give pets a distinct species temperament?

Let me explain. Dragons are known for being, well, draconic. They're supposed to be vicious, very intelligent, and unpredictable. I can't imagine one tolerating some apron-wearing PvPer bossing them around all the time. So, why not use the roleplay excuse of a draconic temper to make greater dragons not quite the reliable killing machines they are now? Make them unpredictable. When a tamer gives the all-kill command and targets another player - perhaps differentiation could be made between players and mobs; this is for PvP, not PvM - how about introducing a good chance (1 in 5 would do it) that the dragon would do nothing, or wander off, or even attack its tamer? There'd be no need to nerf them. They could still be righteous PvM weapons. It's just that every time a player tried to sic their dragon - previously a faithful killer of all their enemies, reliable and boring as all hell to fight with or against - on another player, it would be like a game of Russian roulette. That would make them a bit less eager to fall back on their greaters to protect them against absolutely everything.

It wouldn't have to stop there. Each species could have a personality. Ki-rin and unicorns could be far weaker than greaters, but guaranteed to do as you told them every time. Cu Sidhe could randomly decide to follow some other player or mob instead of you. Hiryu could be randomly aggressive; they always attack, but it's not always the person you told them to attack. Introducing that element of uncertainty in Felucca would be a way to effectively re-nerf tamers without crippling the pets they've come to rely upon, and having to constantly deal with the threat of a sudden pet attack would bring some skill back into PvP taming.

So. Um. Thoughts?

*Just normal hinds. Not even paragons.
 

Bomb Bloke

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Two things worth mentioning.

One, there are two types of pets: Those that you can gain a 100% control chance over, and those you cannot.

In the later case, the more skill you gain, the higher your chance grows, up to the point where you hit 99%. This applies to pretty much every pet that is of any use in combat.

If a pet is unhappy then your control chance will decrease. Every time you give an order a pet ignores (or if the pet can't see you for a while... or if you ignore the pet for a while...), it's happiness decreases.

However, every time you give an order your pet follows, it gains a happiness boost. So a decent tamer will very seldom need to feed a pet to make it happy (even if that pet happens to be a Greater Dragon), UNLESS it's happiness falls too far (say by chance it ignores a few orders in a row), in which case you either feed it or you really do risk having it turn on you.

So a simple way to do what you suggest is to lower tamer's control chance whenever they enter Felucca. Note that just throwing in a random chance to have a pet attack it's owner is NOT the same thing, because that can be easily circumvented by simply hitting "all kill" again (there's no "skill wait time" on that).

However, I still like the idea of just making it impossible to bond/transfer a pet unless you have the required "real" skill levels. That way they'd be less GD's running around in the first place.

The other (somewhat less relevant) point is that creatures have an "aggressiveness" level. This determines how long a monster will tolerate your presence before attacking you, and how likely it is to change targets without proper provocation. One thing that happens when a paragon appears is it gets a HUGE aggressiveness boost, meaning it'll tend to re-target to anything that moves around it (even if it's already in combat!). About the only non-paragon creature I know that'll do that is the Ancient Wyrm (and even then it's pretty rare).
 

twb1990

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The one thing that bugs me is that there is a 20% chance that the person's weapon wont attack and in fact might kill him or her. That is like a mage that can cast a spell 100% of the time in Tram going to Fel and being able to cast it 80% of the time with the other 20% of the time casting it on themselves, which would make for an interesting harm spam...
 
R

Ravahan

Guest
The one thing that bugs me is that there is a 20% chance that the person's weapon wont attack and in fact might kill him or her. That is like a mage that can cast a spell 100% of the time in Tram going to Fel and being able to cast it 80% of the time with the other 20% of the time casting it on themselves, which would make for an interesting harm spam...
except that its more like them casting the ninth circle spell "Death", which requires no reagents, 0 cast time, and 0 mp.

I'm all for this, hell even in Tram. My tamer still goes with a WW//Dragon and mare combo, which I can kill a lot 'o **** faster than GD tamers with. However, attack strength doesn't make up for surviability. Players shouldn't have tamable ancient wyrms, and especially not TRAINABLE AWs in PvP. Nerf em', seriously.
 
S

Splup

Guest
What I find weird is that nothing has yet been done to GD:s/dread warhorses, even thou the problem has been obvious for a long time.

Thou the casting range/speed of other pets needs fixing too. It's ridiculous from how far away pets still dump you, and they cannot be interrupted but cast amazinly fast sometimes. Tamers don't need to be nerfed all the way down to being useless in PvP, they just need same limitations as other temps have.
 
Y

Yalp

Guest
It's important to remember there are people who are not on the nerf GD/Dread/Tamer bandwagon and have put out tons of evidence why it should not happen. This new nerf tamer thread will undoubtedly run 15 pages long, with the standard degeneration into name calling and insulting. In between those written do-do balls being hurled at each other, there is good evidence for NOT nerfing the GD/Dread.
 

twb1990

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
except that its more like them casting the ninth circle spell "Death", which requires no reagents, 0 cast time, and 0 mp.

I'm all for this, hell even in Tram. My tamer still goes with a WW//Dragon and mare combo, which I can kill a lot 'o **** faster than GD tamers with. However, attack strength doesn't make up for surviability. Players shouldn't have tamable ancient wyrms, and especially not TRAINABLE AWs in PvP. Nerf em', seriously.
I play as a Necro/Mage and all of the pot chugging and apple eating really kills me. By the time I have someone red lined they are already back at full health. With all of the potions people carry I am surprised they don't carry any invisibility potions, sure they take a few seconds to use but once you're hidden dragons stop attacking. Just an idea for those of you who are dexers.

And as far as it not costing them anything... you know how hard it is to find a good pet? I spent hours looking for my dragon before I found one I was ready to settle with. It's stats mattered to me only because he is what I take into Doom. It was quite a bit of insurance money, but I could of spent more buying one I guess...

I think pets in pvp is ridiculous but I think the idea of someone's weapon not working or working against them is even worse. At this rate I want warriors to drop their weapons (in their bag of course), cross bows to get jammed, normal bows to slap the wrists of the archers, and spells to back-fire all of them 20% of the time.
 

It Lives

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
No Its a Bad Idea.

Temperamental housing is a much better idea.(oh so sorry you built on a fault line, or so sorry your house sunk in the swamp.)

Your weapon just broke(temper was shoddy) random self inflicted wounds your sword point shattered and embedded it self in your face.

Temperamental spouse oh wait...... I got that already.


The team will get to pets in due time and in a fair manner.
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think it would be better if hunting with pets was just more involved. Like if you hunt with some animal pets, like hell hounds or ostards or maybe a drake even, then it would work like it works now, but with intelligent pets, like dragons, cu's and what not, they should not only have wants, but also a mind of thier own in combat.

Dragons for example, are notorious for being desirous of gold and treasure, maybe they would demand it as payment, and maybe they would be more interested in fighting things that have more gold, and wouldn't take "orders" but suggestions, and maybe have some sort of extended bonding system where you become more familiar with specific pets, and they grow more loyal, and trusting.

If you sick your pet on things it's not interested in hunting, and its not loyal to you, it will fly off, or just ignore you. If youre pet is loyal enough it will cooperate with you.

Feeding pets regularly, not letting pets die, keeping damage low, hunting what the pets are interested in hunting, providing for what ever special needs they have will all increase pet loyalty.

So that way if you want to hunt with something like a GD, you will have to spend ALOT of time bonding with the creature, cause, after all, it does have like 5x your intelect, there is absolutly no reason it should just accept your commands.

Buf if you want a pet that will listen, take out a pack of hell hounds. Effective, but not dominating.
 

twb1990

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The % chance you have of taming an animal isnt all that you have to worry about, there is also the control chance. Nerfing tamers this way will solve nothing. And the bonding/command issue wouldnt work very well for mules. Do you think* blue beetles really enjoy carrying all of your ore? Wouldnt work out very well...
 
C

CKTC

Guest
I think pets are poorly implemented in pvp. A lot, if not all, of the damage vs resists vs hp vs healing abilitys and speeds of PLAYER vs PLAYER were evened out, and for the most part was fairly balanced. I dont think the original idea would solve the imbalance caused by pets, least of all when a lot of the tamers just leave them on guard.
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The % chance you have of taming an animal isnt all that you have to worry about, there is also the control chance. Nerfing tamers this way will solve nothing. And the bonding/command issue wouldnt work very well for mules. Do you think* blue beetles really enjoy carrying all of your ore? Wouldnt work out very well...
Beetles are clearly of animal intelligence, thus easily controlled.
 

Bomb Bloke

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Nevertheless, there's little point in requesting something so complex that the devs won't bother to implement it - regardless as to whether it's a good idea or not.

"KISS".
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yeah, best to keep ideas unintersting. How else will we geta bland broken game. And the idea isnt THAT complex.
 
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