Petition to remove (or at least super-tweak) pets in missions.

[____________Warmaker]

"Now, I will be honest. Vet pet mobs were cake. Adding their pet didn't mean squat to me, simply because I can blow a vet out of the water much too fast for its pet's damage to become significant. I can imagine for the level 90ish player who is starting to run 185 BS missions, it might be a different story. Frankly, I say big deal. So some people have to lower the mission ql slider. It was already pretty pathetic how fast I could level a character once they hit the 90s. Considering the xp curve doesn't really start hurting till title 5, at which point a character can blow through vets with ease, I say keep them. Dropping mission ql isn't going to slow down leveling all that much, and I just don't see how any decent title 5+ players in a 6 man team can have a problem with these things."


We arent all level 90 plus characters with 50 alt characters. You whoever, who seems to fit this bill, although its an exageration, dont care because youve been there done that. Alot of us havent. You got to level fast, but you dont think anyone else should be able to? Thats all i really get from this statement. And as to your 6 man team statement. As things are now a 6 man team vs for instance, 3 engineers. Is now fighting 6 mobs. With three of them likely being many times higher than the engineers themselves. Therefore, even the greatest team is going to have their ass handed to them on a plate. Ill even give an example. I just played a solo mission, or rather tried to, it was only about 10 levels above me. I went in, was calming my way through, im an nt, when i came upon an engineer. The pet it spawned hit me for 10 times as much damage as mobs that level do, TEN TIMES. I dont care who is in the group, i dont care how good they are, your dead. Its a major problem whether you can see it or not.

"As far as multiple pet mobs go, I can't sympathize at all. It really takes very little effort to stop from rushing headlong in to a room of three engineers. If you don't know how to pull or seperate mobs, then too bad. *shrug*"

Frankly, i find this statement to be highly suspect considering the level of the character who is posting this info. You know as well as anyone else that there are times you absolutely cant bring only one mob, no matter your skill.

"How to fix? Well, I've been thinking, and to be honest, I only see the lower end of the game that really needs the tweaking. And just setting mob ql=pet ql should help a lot there. Aces/Real Means, and the ql 230+ mobs that cycle their names back to vets :P were already seriously out of whack for risk/xp."

Why, what is the point? Its just adding extra mobs into the mission. Why mess up something that most players thought was fine? Because a few high level players who have been there forever are bored? Sorry, thats not valid, move onto a new game. Some of us found it more than challenging as was, now its just frustrating and therefore, boring.

"Now, about soloing. mob ql=pet ql will help as well. You may have to drop the ql of your mission, but again, big deal. Soloing is never the best for xp anyways. And sadly, Funcom has now officially reversed their stance on being able to solo to 200. They have officially stated that this game is meant to be played as a team. Yea. Sucks. But if they have taken that stance, I don't expect them to really care too much how this affects soloability."


Many classes, like the nt, have to get their items and nanos from missions, so yeah, it is a big deal. Again, just cause youve done it all doesnt mean the rest of us dont want to.

[secondkenlon]

1. Mob pets should disappear within 15 seconds of killing their master.

2. They should not OE pets. :P

3. No chain casting. If they do cast a second pet, make it a significant time lag.

That would fix it.

[Inyuendo]

AO devs/designers, you invariably pass yourselves off as amateurs and piss people off (in this case, a large portion of your customer base, I'd imagine, and I think we can both agree on this) when you go about your hare-brained activity known to us unfortunates as 'game balancing' <shudder>. Why are you unable to learn from past issues?

Why have you lost any semblance of your original ability to be different and refreshing, not to mention ambitious? Why are you trying to make this game more like EQ (in a bad way) and take the "been there, done that", i.e. the easy way out, on every issue? Verant does EQ better than you, FC, ever will. At least they think most of their actions through, and they have a 2 year leg-up on you. You guys are just getting around to making guns use ranged initiative properly <applause>!

Yet you haven't delivered what most people want the most: a reason to role-play, timely incremental fixes to the weakest professions, etc. There's a long list of things players *want*, and I am sure you have that list tucked away somewhere safe.

Isn't it obvious to you by now that putting in something that is so transparently conducive to increasing downtime is going to be met with hostile resistance? What business classes do you attend that imprint on you the notion that making people angry is going to keep you in the annals of the gaming industry? Remember, you're far from being the top MMORPG. Flattering yourselves by trying to be the same as EQ is a step in the wrong direction. Fact of the matter is, I left EQ because I was sick of the "make the players suck" attitude Verant had/has, back when EQ was just 6 months old. I don't think I am going to be spending much longer with FC/AO since you have the same attitude; why should I, since I already played EQ? I came to AO originally because it seemed to me that the designers weren't as narrow-minded about game mechanics and as miserly with players having a good time. I.e., I used to be able to play this damned game the way I wanted to, not how I was "supposed" to.

For the time being, now I have to run full chaos missions and put up with A1000's so at least I don't get my rectum reamed by the pet classes. What's next, monsters that summon robots that summon MPs?

I have totally lost any faith in your ability to give what the players want, when we want, and the way we want, and to make sensible and *balanced* design decisions at the same time. You pretend to listen to player input, yet you only deliver what you deem fit for consumption, after finding some way to mitigate its original flavor in such a way that it has all the palatability of recycled dung. You have my utter and complete contempt, if that has not become apparent; I give up on you guys. You just seem to want to shoot yourselves in the foot and turn people away. For every hobbled step forward, you take two or more in the opposite direction.

And the sad thing is, I am fully cognizant of the fact that I could yell this stuff at you all day long 'til I was blue in the face, just like every other well-intentioned poster on these boards does, and it would simply rebound off the thick carapace of your stupidity. It really is a shame that no one here can save you from becoming has-beens, except for yourselves.

[Peisinoe]

We arent all level 90 plus characters with 50 alt characters. You whoever, who seems to fit this bill, although its an exageration, dont care because youve been there done that. Alot of us havent. You got to level fast, but you dont think anyone else should be able to? Thats all i really get from this statement. And as to your 6 man team statement. As things are now a 6 man team vs for instance, 3 engineers. Is now fighting 6 mobs. With three of them likely being many times higher than the engineers themselves. Therefore, even the greatest team is going to have their ass handed to them on a plate. Ill even give an example. I just played a solo mission, or rather tried to, it was only about 10 levels above me. I went in, was calming my way through, im an nt, when i came upon an engineer. The pet it spawned hit me for 10 times as much damage as mobs that level do, TEN TIMES. I dont care who is in the group, i dont care how good they are, your dead. Its a major problem whether you can see it or not.

Yes, that's because the mobs currently summon pets much much higher then their own level. Did you bother reading where I said putting pet ql=mob ql would help? Guess not. Also, you really don't know what you're talking about. Your statement about teams unable to kill 6 mobs is an exageration. You only have to kill 3. Considering that you don't even have to kill 3, since you can just pull 1, your point is baseless. And it is only at that lower level where people are pushing the envelope on the the xp. ie: level 90 players doing ql 180+ missions. To be quite frank, most teams of level 150ish+ players can quite easily pull 9+ mobs and kill them all. I have done this in teams with just a heal pet as a healer. I honestly don't see how this will slow down leveling. Here's why. Players tend to go through a process that I like to term growth. At the point where they are level 90 doing ql 180+ missions, these players for the most part are still stuck on most xp per mob as possible. Eventually they realize that it is most xp/time that you really want. You may be shocked at just how fast you still level by dropping the ql of your team missions a tad. *shrug*

Now in reality, it all comes down to...can your team kill the caster before the caster+pet kills you? Chances are yes. Especially if the pet ql=mob ql and not the way it is now.

Frankly, i find this statement to be highly suspect considering the level of the character who is posting this info. You know as well as anyone else that there are times you absolutely cant bring only one mob, no matter your skill.

No. I know absolutely that yes you can. Sorry if you can't. But most people learn this skill as they progress through the game.

Many classes, like the nt, have to get their items and nanos from missions, so yeah, it is a big deal. Again, just cause youve done it all doesnt mean the rest of us dont want to.

You're right. I have done it all. So I'd like to think it just might be possible that I might know that. Once again, pet ql should be tweaked to=mob ql. Or did you not realize that pets are currently being cast at a much higher ql then the mob? Guess not. Also, maybe it is just me, but there is no reason you need to kill every mob in a mission in order to blitz for your nanos. So I'm really not sure what your point was.

Now just because I have one 'high level' character doesn't mean I don't play others at various stages along the road. At no point do any of my characters have problems taking on two mobs in a 50% solo mission. So tweak down those pets so they don't deal insane damage for their level. Problem solved.

1. Mob pets should disappear within 15 seconds of killing their master.

Good idea, but I still say they should vanish completely. Since they give no xp, there is no concievable reason for them to stick around at all once their master is dead.

2. They should not OE pets. :P

Setting pet ql=mob ql would take care of that.

3. No chain casting. If they do cast a second pet, make it a significant time lag.

Don't really see the point. They are for adding damage. What are you doing killing the pet?

Right now the only real issue is that they are a bit too uber. Typically people want them removed. It's too hard so make it too easy. Always the extremes.

[___________wrecklass]

Died on a solo mission real quick. Joined a team and we got wiped a few times.

The pets weren't tested, or if they were the testers were ignored by the devs. Take them out, tweak them if you want, but don't put them in until you know what it is doing to the game. Right now the game is unplayable.

[_______________eldor]

Hopefully this was just a bad mistake on funcoms part that will be fixed(as in pets removed)when they fix the other load of bugs they released

I could ramble on and on about the extreme displeasure of our 3 man teams incapability to finish an even con dungeon or the absolute retardedness of trying to solo a even con mission loaded with insane sometimes invisible overpowered pets


I will leave it at this...NO FUN!=NO PLAY!=NO PAY!
If its not broke dont fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Razaphysics]

Pets must stay !

But they should be better balanced.

[_______________Damos]

I am sorry but this was a poor choice to pet NPC pets in. Heck even PC pets are buggy and not fixed yet so why give the NPC's the same buggy pet? It just compounds the problem. I had pets hitting me but I could not hit them. I had taken a pet out and then watched a NPC instant summon another. Why should the NPC's not run out of nano or suffer from the same casting time as PC's?!?! I found even missions turn into nightmares. I quit EQ to come here to play with my Wife and RL friends because this game offers the playablity of 2-6 person teams where I dont have to worry about KSing and I can walk away from the game if I need to address RL challenges. As it is pets are agroing thru walls and hanging out like mobs in the zone. They dont give exp. And the only way to get them to poof is to attack them for several minutes until they deactivate. I have seen then go rogue and even when the master is dead try to kill me and even run off due to bad pathing and bring friends back because I am trying to attack the pet and gather agro as it comes back. I must say I agree with Jafray and Warmaker..... This was poorly done.
Back to the drawing board I think.

Damos

[_________Necrofiliak]

Although i like the pet mob and feel it gives the engy/crat/mp mobs a fighting chance i do not liek the fact that the 220+ bots are virtually unmezzable. lower the nano resists on the warbot/slayer pets so we can at least mez them half the time. instead of 15 tries+ The demons are not so bad as the engy bots and ninjabots at mezzing.

If you really want people to accept the idea of pets, let them give exp. I dont see why they dont since you can fight these bots for exp in other circumstances.

Another solution would be just making the bots disappear as soon as the owner dies. The time span between pets disappearing after owner dies is too long and the pets can accidently be aggroed.

[_______________Vydas]

Zylina, it's no longer true that you can always single pull. The reason why is that not all neutral mobs aggro now (I myself had inconsistent results with this during my limited time in game yesterday. I had one that did, but the rest did not.)

As long as that is the case, a front room of neutral NPCs will require that they be aggro'ed in order to pull.

[________________Seid]

This problem is not a new one. Its the ages old mob-casts-nanos-WAY-above-their-level issue. Fix the mob nano skill to the level appropriate to the mob and they will no longer be able to cast uber pets. Or uber nukes.

[assassimon]

There are no pet nanos higher than ql 200, so how can NPC mobs cast those pets?

No pet should be able to be higher ql than 200, not even from an Ace, it just doesn't exist.

And why does my demon have 0 nano resist but the demons the NPC have, have insane nano resist?


tweak them or better, remove them.

[Relarin]

Add me to the list of Ex-EQ players that came to AO and is now considering leaving AO. It's bad enough a GREEN CON Engineer's BASE damage with a pistol is twice mine (with all my evades maxed and armor to the point of near OE) but you give it a pet too? One levels beyond what my engineer can summon with implants and buffs? Nice, reminds me more and more of EQ's purposely mis-conned monsters.

This has got to go from solo missions and preferably the whole game! I do not group and probably never will (another reason I left Evergroup, er quest), and now you've made it impossible for non-twinks to solo for XP due to pets.

All I can see is either monumental arrogance from the Dev Team for even considering this. I neither need or want more timesinks, since I am a casual player, not a no-lifer that lives in AO.

[Centurion3]

Keep em, maybe now I wont have to do missions in broken shores all day every day till my eyes starts to bleed... cant remember when I was in an team that did an mission that was not against all human mobs... (those exists you know, missions without human mobs).

[_______________Vydas]

If you find an area where you can pull smallish missions with critters, you may not be doing BS missions forever. I have characters, though, that mixed Home missions with missions in other locations, anyway, for variety.

They are all doing Home missions now, though, and I guess that's all the future holds, as well.

Why? Because Home missions are of a size where you may stand a chance of pulling things to the door.

[__________armbreaker]

FC, I recommend you think about the changes you make before wasting your time doing them. You have plenty of other issues to fix without trying to cause more problems.

It's nearly impossible to solo missions since it requires serious mezz skills. That's if you fight one mob at a time. If, however, you get 2 pet class mobs in a mission you have 2 options.. 1) die or 2) leave the mission.

[Satyrika]

What bothers me the most about the new pets is how my lvl 168 MP can still solo ql 180+ missions without much trouble from the new pets. If I bring out my lvl 90 MA on the other hand and try a ql 115ish team mission with a full team, it's just not doable...

It seems to me like the lower lvls are getting punished even more than the higher lvls, which is bad imo.

We discussed this on our guild meeting yesterday, and we all agreed the new pets add more to frustration then fun.

Something is just wrong when lvl'ing my MP is faster and easier than lvl'ing my various alts.

[coldwarkid]

I think that some professions are having more trouble than others. My lvl 62 Engineer is having no more difficulty with solo missions that he did prior to 14.6. My Fixer alt is fine as long as I remember that he is a Fixer and throw down an area snare when I get into trouble. My Soldier on the other hand is finding solo missions extremely tough indeed.

Reasons:

1) Pet mobs don't seem to switch aggro easily (if at all) when they're in guard mode. My Engineer's tactic is to set his pet onto the mob before it has a chance to aggro. The mob casts its pet, which goes into guard mode and aggroes the bot. I can then move the Eng into the fight without having to worry about the mob's pet aggroing him (although the odds are that the caster will).

The downside is that if things go wrong and the mob aggroes the Eng before the bot reaches it, it's practically impossible to get the mob's pet to switch targets. I've only had that character die once sine the patch, and this was why.

2) Throwing down a snare and running like hell still works. The pet will try to follow you, but eventually you'll break contact and it'll drop out of the fight. If it's out of range of its caster when this happens, which is quite likely, then it won't aggro the next time you pass it. Find the caster and finish him off.

3) Soldiers don't have pets. Soldiers don't have snares, roots or crowd control. A Soldier's best defence is a reflect shield, which ensures that pets will continue to aggro once their caster's dead. Ergo, life is tough for Soldiers ATM.


However, Cz has said that they're looking into getting pets to de-spawn when their caster dies. That should go a long way towards restoring many classes' ability to solo. The range of pets that mobs cast is already a lot tighter than it was which has helped a great deal.

Cheers,

~R~

[Toldi]

I think the pet idea is very bad, the pets are unbalancing the game.
The "mezzer" professions doesn't have problem with the pets, mezz the pet and kill the master.

Ok I understand if you don't attack the pet just attack its master and after the master dies the pet disappears.

Then I cannot use my shield and my Rage?. The damage shield hit back the pet and after its master dies, the pet doesn't stops its attack, and i need to kill the pet.

When one room has 2 mob with 2 pets it isn't very good....

The soldiers are in the same problem. Does not use their reflect?

And the bracers, and any reflect shield have the same problem...

And we cannot heal, just using the first aid. I think the Enforcers cannot do any solo mission now, this is a very big nerf...

I know how the solo mission is antisocial, but when u need a quick token, or you don't have much time for searching a team and doing team missions, just you want to do a quick mission, then you don't able to do that.

After this patch I think the solo missions just for the blitzers, getting the money and item, as quick as possiple.

This is very bad, after 14.6 only will we PAY for this game, and not PLAY with this game?

Thanks

[__________Wraith God]

I've done a bunch team missions now with the current pet levels. One team was level 35ish doing ql 60 missions, another was level 115ish doing ql 180 missions. People died on occatiion, but in both cases most people made it through without dying. More died in the 35ish team simply because the people in the team made more mistakes.

What is essential though, is that you have a calmer, and your calmer knows his stuff. On one occation in the 35ish team, the calmer handled the engi pet, but after the engi was dead people wanted to take out the bot. Big mistake. A couple of people died and the rest fled; the bot was barely damaged. Similarly, the main room would have been way too overwhelming without a calmer, but as it was, the job got done.

I've tried single player missions with an level 95 MA. Hopeless. No calm = you die.