I
imported_revenant2
Guest
I got ahold of 2 pet balls and tested them, one thing came up:
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Right now, the timer for the wait for the pet ball is associated directly with the player. Meaning, a player can hit one pet ball, then must wait the 10 seconds (I think that's what it is) before hitting it, or any other pet ball, again. It effectively forces the pet balls to chain in increments of 10 seconds, no matter which pet the balls may be linked to.
This chaining effect feels overkill when you are working with several pets and several pet balls at the same time. You send your pets out, and then hit a pet ball to recall one, and then you cannot recall the other one until 10 seconds later. It doesn't feel right that way. It's like you expect each 10-second delay to be related to a ball's use on that particular pet, not to what you did to a different pet a moment ago.
If you're using two pets, the pair of balls has the effect of causing the individual pets to have 20-second timers if you alternate your ball usage back and forth between both. The length increases as you add pets - a pack of frenzied ostards would take 40 seconds to be recalled to you, assuming the first hit on the first ball wasn't affected by any delay, and 50 seconds if you tried to move the whole pack a second time.
The picture I had of a smooth operation was 10 seconds for each individual pet. You could send several pets out, and then if you had not been using the balls recently, you could summon them back without leaving some stuck out there by themselves for 10 + 10 + etc. seconds.
Maybe the timer could be put onto the individual pet instead of the player's use of a ball? It should be doable such that multiple pet balls on a single pet won't work to defeat the intended wait time.
I believe that in this form it still solves the issues that the change was intended to. Also, I'm not sure the tamers realize how this chaining effect is going to kick in with multiple balls (I might have missed where someone talked about it, but yeah). I for one had trouble finding 2 pet balls to even test with on TC and ended up doing it the long way, killing solen queens (doh).
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Two other things:
2d client: When you tell your pet to guard you, you see the guarding flag appear on the pet, and the guarded flag appears under you. Then when you say "all stop", the guarding flag quickly disappears from the pet but the client is still saying "guarded" for you. You're not actually being guarded, though, and if you log out and log back in, the client no longer says "guarded" on you.
And this exists in production as well as on TC1: if you feed a pet, it ceases to follow whatever its most recent movement command was. If it's supposed to be following or staying, it stops doing so and begins to wander aimlessly.
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Here's a half a thing:
The pets' willingness to "protect" their owners is based upon the monsters initial attack (or auto-attack) on the player, before the player has even taken damage. I like this, but I also note that if the player says "all guard me" after this initial "attack" has occurred, the pets will not do anything protection-like, and are willing to stand and watch as the evil, assaulting monster rips the pet owner to shreds (heh). In one's wish list, one could say that in addition to what happens now, it would be nice if the pets were able to recognize when an attack of this sort is going on and respond to "all guard me" even after an attack has initiated.
Overall it's a great improvement over what was there before! The pets are a million times more responsive to the "all follow me" thing, and they actually listen in the face of distractions, picture that!
I didn't get to test any of the behaviors in PVP, this was all relative to monsters. :/
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Edit: I read that it's 15 seconds on each pet ball as it goes to Origin, mmm.
-------------------------
Right now, the timer for the wait for the pet ball is associated directly with the player. Meaning, a player can hit one pet ball, then must wait the 10 seconds (I think that's what it is) before hitting it, or any other pet ball, again. It effectively forces the pet balls to chain in increments of 10 seconds, no matter which pet the balls may be linked to.
This chaining effect feels overkill when you are working with several pets and several pet balls at the same time. You send your pets out, and then hit a pet ball to recall one, and then you cannot recall the other one until 10 seconds later. It doesn't feel right that way. It's like you expect each 10-second delay to be related to a ball's use on that particular pet, not to what you did to a different pet a moment ago.
If you're using two pets, the pair of balls has the effect of causing the individual pets to have 20-second timers if you alternate your ball usage back and forth between both. The length increases as you add pets - a pack of frenzied ostards would take 40 seconds to be recalled to you, assuming the first hit on the first ball wasn't affected by any delay, and 50 seconds if you tried to move the whole pack a second time.
The picture I had of a smooth operation was 10 seconds for each individual pet. You could send several pets out, and then if you had not been using the balls recently, you could summon them back without leaving some stuck out there by themselves for 10 + 10 + etc. seconds.
Maybe the timer could be put onto the individual pet instead of the player's use of a ball? It should be doable such that multiple pet balls on a single pet won't work to defeat the intended wait time.
I believe that in this form it still solves the issues that the change was intended to. Also, I'm not sure the tamers realize how this chaining effect is going to kick in with multiple balls (I might have missed where someone talked about it, but yeah). I for one had trouble finding 2 pet balls to even test with on TC and ended up doing it the long way, killing solen queens (doh).
-----------------------
Two other things:
2d client: When you tell your pet to guard you, you see the guarding flag appear on the pet, and the guarded flag appears under you. Then when you say "all stop", the guarding flag quickly disappears from the pet but the client is still saying "guarded" for you. You're not actually being guarded, though, and if you log out and log back in, the client no longer says "guarded" on you.
And this exists in production as well as on TC1: if you feed a pet, it ceases to follow whatever its most recent movement command was. If it's supposed to be following or staying, it stops doing so and begins to wander aimlessly.
---------------------
Here's a half a thing:
The pets' willingness to "protect" their owners is based upon the monsters initial attack (or auto-attack) on the player, before the player has even taken damage. I like this, but I also note that if the player says "all guard me" after this initial "attack" has occurred, the pets will not do anything protection-like, and are willing to stand and watch as the evil, assaulting monster rips the pet owner to shreds (heh). In one's wish list, one could say that in addition to what happens now, it would be nice if the pets were able to recognize when an attack of this sort is going on and respond to "all guard me" even after an attack has initiated.
Overall it's a great improvement over what was there before! The pets are a million times more responsive to the "all follow me" thing, and they actually listen in the face of distractions, picture that!
I didn't get to test any of the behaviors in PVP, this was all relative to monsters. :/
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Edit: I read that it's 15 seconds on each pet ball as it goes to Origin, mmm.
