14.2 - Pet Changes

[_______________Skara]

No flame from me either, but what I see you wanting is the ability to massively OE your pet, and not be able to be affected by debuffs in any way (your post specifically mentioned that a non-debuffable skill should be the check). For a level playing field, you have to be able to be debuffed, the same as everyone else.

I admit, using the skills that are being used may not make sense logically, but if we want to get away from having a small handful of viable classes (I am a decent dmg dealer and healer, but unless I team with my guild, I cannot get into a group) the changes have to apply to everyone.

If they implemented your change, you could get Mochams, get your pet, take out your nano implants and install psychic implants if necessary, and never have to deal with the end result of this patch. That will not work.

They will still have some balancing to do. And again, there are other ways to implement an OE fix. This was discussed at length months ago when the subject first came up. They are implemented the fix as described, and if they are going to do it, it must be across the board (followed up by additional tweaks as needed) or the game will still be MP/Engi/Trader/Enf.


Skara

[___________Pygmalion]

Originally posted by seppo
The only reason i started my engie and that i can live with the poor pet pathing in AO is that our bots are more powerfull than most characters.

Do u realise how many people that will quit AO after this patch?

If you do changes of this caliber, you should have announced it a year ahead. If people start new characters, i think they have the right to know the proffesion their remains as good as they were when they started the character.

This sucks, im out.

What a whiner. Look, Engineers will still be cool, and I will continue to play mine, and continue to enjoy the crud out him. I've already been living by the 20%, since I'm not an ubergeek and I do all my enhancements myself. I've been doing just fine.

I welcome the changes in this patch. I would have thought that this 20% rule, or even a 10% or exact rule would have been how the game was conceived to begin with. Meet the minimum requirements, and you're fine. Don't meet them, and well, tough. What's the point of having requirements, if they're not enforced?

I for one, am not quitting, and I would actually like to commend Funcom for taking such an active and interested part in what their gamers report, and in striving to make AO the best game in can be. I've seen a lot of people bashing Funcom and AO, I think it's about time someone stood up and said, "Hey guys, I play your game, and I enjoy it. Good job!" Is AO perfect? Heck no. But Funcom listens and fixes.

[jesepe]

Time to delete my account. I have no desire to spend time creating a 135 MP on a second account to shadow my Engie.
Funcom is not looking at the obvious. An engie needs a pet 60 lvls above him just to survive. We cant do a damn thing, pvp or otherwise, but cast a pet....

[______________Rez-SN]

I got a question here

Slayerdroid Guardian which is the highest level Engineer pet requires 874 Time & Space / 874 Matter Creations.

So 20% OE patch it will require for Engineers to have 699 Time & Space / 699 Matter Creations for the pet to continue responding am I correct?

874 x 20% = 174.8 (Estimated up to 175)

874 - 175 = 699

Am I correct here?

[Graxxus]

Yep thats how it works rez within 20% from weapon equiping, armor equiping, pet casting requirements. It is NOT 20% above your skills. That is merely a misconception. The higher the skill requirement is, the less skill you actually need in that skill to keep it equiped without penalty. That is the nature of percentages.

The OE rules as they are now really won't effect most mid to high level characters with an OE weapon meant for their profession. It will hurt those that aren't native with that gun and used +132 wrangles to get it equiped in the lower levels. Everyone will get screwed occasionally by traders and other debuffs however. But debuffs are supposed to have an effect on damage. Whether or not these debuffs will actually effect mobs is a different story however because mobs don't have skills to debuff and they don't have skill requirements for anything they use or do. They just use special weapons with modifiers to determine average damage inflicted..based on level of mob. Everything on a mob is based on the mobs level rather than the actual skills that breed and profession is supposed to have. Mob nanos are set up in a que of what they can cast...also not dependent on requirements to cast. Heck even the initiatives of mobs are based on their level.

[______________Rez-SN]

Well,

Thats great, im in the safe then. My Time & Space of 708 and Matter Creations of 709.

Guess I am in the clear for my QL174 Ithaca Ki-8 Snakeman as well.

763 x 20% = 152.6 (Estimated up to 153)

763 - 153 = 610

I'm so freaking happy!

[______________Aaleji]

Originally posted by Skara
No flame from me either, but what I see you wanting is the ability to massively OE your pet, and not be able to be affected by debuffs in any way (your post specifically mentioned that a non-debuffable skill should be the check). For a level playing field, you have to be able to be debuffed, the same as everyone else.

I admit, using the skills that are being used may not make sense logically, but if we want to get away from having a small handful of viable classes (I am a decent dmg dealer and healer, but unless I team with my guild, I cannot get into a group) the changes have to apply to everyone.

If they implemented your change, you could get Mochams, get your pet, take out your nano implants and install psychic implants if necessary, and never have to deal with the end result of this patch. That will not work.

They will still have some balancing to do. And again, there are other ways to implement an OE fix. This was discussed at length months ago when the subject first came up. They are implemented the fix as described, and if they are going to do it, it must be across the board (followed up by additional tweaks as needed) or the game will still be MP/Engi/Trader/Enf.


Skara

I see your point Skara, and believe me I feel for Adventurers as well. I did mention that Psychic is unbuffable - that was meant to be more a side-note ... but I understand where you are coming from that OE should be balanced ... tho I'm not sure how MA's are going to be affected. Regardless of how we all feel FC is going to implement 14.2 and any other changes they feel like, just seems to me they should really examine every angle, pro and con before they just announce IPR is coming ... *sigh* i SUPPOSE they DO own the rights to the game and can do anything they please ... /me reaches into pocket and hands Cosmik another $12.95

[______________Rez-SN]

I'm kinda glad for the changes that are to come in 14.2

I personally am sick of seeing level 100 Engineers running around with the same bot that I have or a punk level 70 Trader laying me out in 2 shots because hes using a QL200 shotgun critting my ass.

- Work for the bot, don't pay for it.

And to the one who says Engineers suck at PVP, take your head out of your ass because if you use the right nanos and strategy, Engineers can be deadly in PVP.

For starters, try using Disruptive Photon absorber/devourer/annihilator/void nano. You also get AC buffs, Damage shields, and Harmonic Cocoons. Also Quick Weapon + 56 Ranged init and Entropy Weapon +20 all dmg types isn't bad either.

Use the right weapon, Trim your pet to Divert Energy to Offensive and Positive to Negative you are good to go.

[__________WGMelchior]

I have some questions about the new requirement thingies...


First, will the /pet behind command induced by debuffs/lack of skills identical to the current /pet behind? As it is now, my bot still retaliates if he or I get attacked. Will it stay this way?

Will the bot just finish it's current target, or all targets around it?

Wouldn't it be better if pets were scaled downwards? Like, take the stats of a gladiatorbot of the same level you have the skills to cast and put that into your guardbot.

What is the trouble with the aggro trimmers? I hear they aren't working, but I haven't checked it out yet. If so, will they be fixed at the same time?

The /pet report command, does it expand over several rows? The nano report, in specific.

[_______________Hobie]

i think a lot of people are confusing being oe'ed normally and getting debuffed. debuffs screw everyone. weapons users just get reduced damage. casters have to look for a lower ql dd. pet classes have to terminate and recreate their pets. as it is, casters will not see much difference in their nukes with the new rules. weapons users will see a bigger difference when debuffed(ESPECIALLY if they had to wrangle to get their weapon on). and pet users will see the most difference and will not be able to get out of debuffs as unharmed as they do now. when i get debuffed, i just have to use a lower ql nuke and anima. my red pet is still slamming on the mob and my heal pet is still healing.

this is NOT about mp's being able to self-buff red pets. if a mp self-buffs a red pet, he will be 0% oe'ed and will stay at 0% oe'd if he refreshes his buffs.

this is about a ql70-ish mp getting hit with a -86 debuff and having to go from supreme wrath and sanoo to lesser wrath and valentyia....including the 19 seconds it takes to recast the pets.

once again, all classes will get screwed by overly powerful debuffs. mp's can screw other classes over just as easily with our own debuffs.

anyway, we will see how this all works out on test, because i can't imagine that this solution would be viable for any pet professions in groups in actual gameplay.

you'd think if they were just trying to target oe'ing without making debuffs uber, they'd make debuffs take off less than 20% so debuffed you wouldn't be just a sitting duck. but it seems they like to keep the trader debuffs over 20% so that a debuff from an equal level trader will make you fall slightly under the oe cap.

keep in mind everything i'm referencing relates to people who can self buff into their pets and are at 0% oe at all times(like mps and engies who don't time out on their wrangle/masteries/infuse/mochams). if you're an engie and have a pet twice your level, you're gonna be screwed no matter what.

[______________Aaleji]

Originally posted by Reznoir
And to the one who says Engineers suck at PVP, take your head out of your ass because if you use the right nanos and strategy, Engineers can be deadly in PVP.

For starters, try using Disruptive Photon absorber/devourer/annihilator/void nano. You also get AC buffs, Damage shields, and Harmonic Cocoons. Also Quick Weapon + 56 Ranged init and Entropy Weapon +20 all dmg types isn't bad either.

Rez - Photon Absorber is great and all - if you don't MOVE or SHOOT or ORDER YOUR BOT TO DO ANYTHING. It's a great defense if you just want other toons to pop you for 2 damage. Otherwise it's kinda useless. AC buffs are great, but minimum damage is minimum damage it doesn't matter what your A/C's are at. Quick weapon ... that's a joke ... install a scope and you're screwed ... Ranged init is dark blue and if you have ANY type of scope you're silly to waste the IP to get your init back to positive. +20 to all damage types is ok, but honestly 20 damage to a ql200 mob is less than .1% of it's health ... not really a help. Most of our buffs (excluding A/C) are relatively helpful at a low level, but at the levels we are at they are practically useless. If you are trying to tell me that Engi's are PvP material you are seriously mistaken ... stick to PvM it's what we do well ... it's what we do the best.

[______________Rez-SN]

Any class is PVP material if you know how to PVP.

[Champagne]

Just to stay on topic now, PETPATHING SUX!!!!!!!!

That should be the main topic of this thread. OE-discussions should go to the OE-thread.

[Cosmik]

Originally posted by WGMelchior
I have some questions about the new requirement thingies...


First, will the /pet behind command induced by debuffs/lack of skills identical to the current /pet behind? As it is now, my bot still retaliates if he or I get attacked. Will it stay this way?

I tried this with /pet behind today and out of all the times I tested it, my pet never attacked back after being hit. Does anyone else find their pets attacking MOBs after being placed in /pet behind?

(If so, what pet? What MOB?)

[_______________edict]

Originally posted by Cosmik


I tried this with /pet behind today and out of all the times I tested it, my pet never attacked back after being hit. Does anyone else find their pets attacking MOBs after being placed in /pet behind?

(If so, what pet? What MOB?)

I've never experienced this in all my time in AO!

"/pet behind" and the pet will just float there and looks, erm, pretty?

"/pet guard", sure it will attack if either the pet or the master get hit.

I have all the meta pets in the game.

[____________Greystar]

Originally posted by Cosmik


I tried this with /pet behind today and out of all the times I tested it, my pet never attacked back after being hit. Does anyone else find their pets attacking MOBs after being placed in /pet behind?

(If so, what pet? What MOB?)

A bit difficult to explain and understand, pets have an attack list, which they do not lose until zoning.

/pet behind works fine....until the next attack commences, that means the pet will attack all targets it was ever engaged with, unless you are fast enough to get it into behind mode again...really stupid when you mistakenly attacked a mob a few rooms back as the pet runs always back to the mobs still in the attack list after a fight is over, same goes for calmed mobs, if that mob was in the attack list before calming, pets will automatically engage to clear the attack list after another fight is over.

[__________WGMelchior]

Cosmik, were you using an engineer pet? I've used various robots for 7 months, and this is the way engineer pets works against ALL mobs.

[______________Scorus]

Originally posted by Cosmik
I tried this with /pet behind today and out of all the times I tested it, my pet never attacked back after being hit. Does anyone else find their pets attacking MOBs after being placed in /pet behind?

(If so, what pet? What MOB?)

I think this is an engineer pet phenomenon. It has never happened with either my MP or crat, but an engineer friend of mine demonstrated it to me. She would give /pet behind or /pet follow commands but as soon as she was attacked the pet would charge in. I believe this only happened for awhile, so it might only affect one type of engineer pet.

Scorus

[_______________Samuz]

- Either you fix this issue 100% NOW, or I cancel my subscription.
It´s as simple as that.

I am sure alot of players feel it the same way ...

- Sam

[________________Gwos]

Originally posted by Scorus


I think this is an engineer pet phenomenon. It has never happened with either my MP or crat, but an engineer friend of mine demonstrated it to me. She would give /pet behind or /pet follow commands but as soon as she was attacked the pet would charge in. I believe this only happened for awhile, so it might only affect one type of engineer pet.

Scorus

My current demon pet will attack if he, my healer pet, or myself are attacked when he is in "behind" mode. But it seems random. That is to say, he only attacks sometimes. Particularly in team missions where the line-of-sight aggro is nastier, I'll see my demon suddenly run off somewhere to attack something. I attribute it to the fact he is a *demon* and they are notoriously unruly.