Publish 74 on Test Centre... A few taming fixes

[Wenchkin]

I hope I didn't miss anything tamer related, the changes list is kinda huge!

But here are the taming bits I spotted:

• When trading a pet the pet will now become frozen, an animal lore gump will be displayed and the pet has to be within 10 tiles of the owner.

• You will no longer lose compassion if you fail to rez a pet.

• Buff/debuff scripts will remove themselves properly when you stable/claim a chicken from their coop.

There's a full list of all the changes they're throwing at us here. Make yourself a cuppa, the devs have been very busy little bees!

Wenchy

 

[pgib]

So lemme get this straight: we have pets that vanishes, pets that get stuck in place more often than not, 130 magery pets that don't heal, teleport or dispel, flying creatures that don't fly, we don't see a usable pet since four years, we have so many vampires in game that you can smell the scent of rotting bodies before to log in and we got the chicken buff/debuff fix?

Can I pour some rat poison in that cup?

 

[Wenchkin]

Well I guess we can look at the cup half empty too if you wish

I wouldn't put rat poison in the cup, but if I felt as negatively about taming as your post sounds... I wouldn't be taming. Or, I would file bug reports for everything and simply take a break.

Wenchy

 

[pgib]

I'm not saying that the patch is bad, i love the bod things. But it doesn't address even a single problem of tamers, not even at the bug level (probably because some of them are very nasty to track down, like the pet-pouff one).

Keeping to say that this is the best of possible worlds wouldn't help the game progress a bit: you have to point out what doesn't work to have it fixed.

After this patch tamers are still the only "class" that needs one hour to defeat things all other type of characters can kill in minutes, it is still the only type of player that requires powerscroll to control useful pets, it is still the only char that can't approach (not even in group) certain monsters, it is still the desperate soul that has to raise an untrainable skill and so on.

So no, this patch is no good news for tamers. It is for the game but not for tamers.

For the "leave it" part, i swear i tried but when it comes to taming UO is the only option you have and being a taming addict i'm kinda stuck here.

 

[Wenchkin]

Keeping to say that this is the best of possible worlds wouldn't help the game progress a bit: you have to point out what doesn't work to have it fixed.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't point out what's wrong, we really need to be sending in detailed bug reports and calling GMs when appropriate so they get fixed. Sadly, a lot of the time complaints just hit the forums and unless a dev passes at the right moment, they're missed. I don't think the devs are deliberately leaving us with bugs, I suspect it boils down to whether they can reproduce a bug and fix it. Some old bugs probably haven't been reported in an awfully long time. Vet tamers might be able to list them off and expect the devs to recite them off by heart, but if nobody's reported them for a few years the team might not realize what we're swearing at on a daily basis. Maybe our new years resolution should be to send in bug reports

After this patch tamers are still the only "class" that needs one hour to defeat things all other type of characters can kill in minutes, it is still the only type of player that requires powerscroll to control useful pets, it is still the only char that can't approach (not even in group) certain monsters, it is still the desperate soul that has to raise an untrainable skill and so on.

Where is it written that tamers have to have the same power as everyone else? What if pets are intended as companions rather than lawn mowers for spawns? I really don't subscribe to the whole UO arms race thing, or the notion that tamers are puny and weak. The strongest most powerful templates are usually the first to be nerfed, I'm quite happy if we're off the top of that list lol.

So no, this patch is no good news for tamers. It is for the game but not for tamers.

Well tamers are just one profession among many, so it's only fair we get a proportion of the fixes Given that we're seeing dungeon upgrades and bug fixes running parallel to each other, I think we're just at the beginning of a rather large overhaul. It probably will mean bits get fixed little by little. But I'd rather see 3 fewer bugs than get nothing at all. If we get 3 bugs squished for every dungeon upgrade that's done, we'll be almost content by the end of it!

For the "leave it" part, i swear i tried but when it comes to taming UO is the only option you have and being a taming addict i'm kinda stuck here.

Oh I'm hooked too, but I tend to walk away for a break these days if I'm getting frustrated with it. Saves me annoying my partner when I grump at UO LOL.

Wenchy

 

[pgib]

It is written in the dragons' scale. I mean, you can control a Dragon. In a fantasy game that is the power in itself. It is not funny the bunny, it's a Dragon.

But if you send your Dragon against a pink fart down in shame you can't help but feel sorry for that poor beast.

Last time i did it after half an hour my gd looked at me and said: "yeah, i know, i'm trying, can't do any better, wanna come here and try yourself?".

With a sampire running around and telling me "you should adapt, make a sampire, make a sampire". Stinky undeads.

We're not talking about power anymore here, it's about the dignity of the draconic race.

Anyway I'm eagerly waiting for the revamp of Ice and Destard, there lies our best chance.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Anyway I'm eagerly waiting for the revamp of Ice and Destard, there lies our best chance.

Yeah, I am really hoping for a WW that equals the GD stats. Not really wanting a more powerful option tho. I just like the WW pixels better For me I don't care how long it takes my pet to munch on a critter before it drops, as long as he/she keeps if offa my rear.

With a sampire running around and telling me "you should adapt, make a sampire, make a sampire". Stinky undeads.

I am among those that are waiting for the day they actually scale vampiric embrace's duration to the casters Necro and SS level. They nerfed/adjusted Chiv due to folks hollering it was op, and it was nowhere as op as the sampire temp is *shrugs*

 

[pgib]

The "greater whyte wyrm" or "frost wyrm" is a total mistery: why they didn't make it when they introduced the greater dragon? This would be a nice FOF question.

As much as i despise necromancers (rp of course) i don't want them to be nerfed or nerfixed, i'd prefer a general buff for other types of pvmers followed by a rebalance of monster strength: the result is the same but because everyone sees his type growing stronger it would feel positive (sometimes the only way to deal with humans is cheating).

Or they could accidentally forget to turn off the tamable switch for Sudiva. In that case i'd be happy forever .

 

[Wenchkin]

I think if we're talking about the dignity of the dragon race, we shouldn't be able to tame any of them at all. If dragons were raised to the level that they are in other fantasy games we'd have our stables emptied Greater dragons were a mistake. I sincerely hope the devs drew a line under that and swore never to repeat it.

Look at the more recent pet introductions. They aren't uber. Do you really think we'll go from scree to uber uber dragons in one hop? Heheh, I don't. Guess what happens if you do get what you want though...Yep, the sampires will want more. So they get a bigger weapon, so then the tamers want more. And you all look rather silly and power hungry.

This is what I think of when I hear calls that tamers want bigger guns.. erm pets...

[youtube]JQe4oUsCe3Q&[/youtube]

Back in the old days, if someone whined at a tamer "oh you've got sooo much power than me" the usual response was "make your own tamer then!" The same works in reverse... If you want the power of a sampire, build one. You'd end up looking like the lamest easy mode player if you got a pet so strong it could outgun the other templates. Nobody will think "oh look at that guy with the big awesome dragon!" it'll be more like "look, that tamer's hiding behind his dragon again!" All the players who can't otherwise play the game by themselves would make an instant tamer, jewel up and get said pet. Then yay, nerf stick on the rump again.

I would much rather see taming develop more around RP ideas of a tamer with animal companions than meat shield of the month. I think there is merit in keeping one skill out of this silly arms race, and giving players something challenging they can work at once all the other stuff seems easy.

Wenchy

 

[pgib]

I respectfully disagree with every single word (but for "if" and "one").

 

[Wenchkin]

Well 2 words of agreement is a start lol.

Wenchy

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Well 2 words of agreement is a start lol.

Spoken like a true mediator.