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Thread: [Discussion] Splitting the Attack Pet line(s)

  1. #1

    [Discussion] Splitting the Attack Pet line(s)

    TL;DR version: Splitting the Attack Pet line into Tanker/Melee DPS/Ranged DPS lines and having all pets available from TL1 through TL7.

    I've been doing some thinking, inspired by the news about splitting the mezz pet into different lines, and thought "why the heck not split the Attack Pet lines too?"

    Looking at the MP toolset when it comes to the Attack Pet, it's pretty straightforward but limited: The 'main' attack pet we get for most of our time isn't very suited to tanking, and the tanking type pets we get are intended almost solely for endgame play in the ages before expansions came in. Nevermind the lack of taunting capacity or how taunts and pets work.

    Not counting Urn or SL pets (basically an attempt at making more of a DD based pet for pvp with the Urn pets and some damage/tank hybrid for SL) the pets are limited in scope with the needs of the modern day MP, and especially with relation to the plans the developers have in mind for the profession in the future, where Damage-to-Pet and pet taunting from perks looks to be an option.

    I got the idea that extending the Demon line down towards TL1 would be a good idea, giving MPs more options for tanking things (the whole line would have to be rebalanced since RK demons only use one weapon) and would make the option of giving the MP pet taunting tools have a point, since the meatball attack pets aren't gifted with loads of HP or ACs that the demons are. So at this point the MP would be looking at 2 pet lines: Demons to tank but with lower damage and the classic meatball to put out more damage at the loss of the ability to tank. Nothing out of the ordinary except you'll have access to the demon line almost from the word go.

    Not too long after this I found myself in the "In The Machine" instance, aka DB2 or Aune, and had the pleasure of watching my pet run around like crazy and do everything BUT actually find and hit Aune. Sure I could nuke, jump around, etc, but when it came to actually doing something with the pets vs. Aune, I was mostly a lump. Another situation which I had problems with pet range is the Beast, oddly enough. In order to get the attack pet to start hitting The Beast, I literally had to drag it up onto the platform where the Beast was standing, praying it didn't decide right then to drop it's infamous huge nuke or some other bit of nastiness.

    A ranged attack pet would really have been nice to have about then. There's a request in the wishlist for a nuking pet option for the upcoming Utility Pet line, but I'm thinking of one that would be in the Attack pet line, also scaling from TL1-7, for times and situations when having long reach on the pet would be beneficial and useful vs just pure DD. My thinking on the damage is that you'd lose some damage to get the benefit of longer range. How that would work on the other hand, I'm not sure: I'm tempted to think either 2-3 "fists" like our current SL pets only with lower damage, or one 'fist' with a big hit, but long attack/recharge so the overall DPS is still going to be lower than the Melee pet. I think the Long Tom type pet probably should be more fragile than either the Tanking type or Melee type pet, and more reliant on a good tank in the team to be effective.

    While I like the idea of having flexibility in more than just the Utility pet, I'm open to ideas on what the players of MPs would like to see their attack pet be able to do. Bear in mind, this is regarding the Attack Pet only, any ideas regarding the Utility Pet lines planned by the developers should probably go to the Utility Pet suggestion thread.

    And on that note, Discuss!

  2. #2
    You've basically reinvented the Warhammer pet system (tank, AoE, ranged, anti-magic, basic pets that scale with level). With pet skills based off the masters, this actually solves the entire 'pets falling behind' problem of the current system. Don't know how it would work with twinking and AO's mechanics though.
    bai2u!
    -::l2pvp!1::-
    Electronite: FFA also destroyed Clan hegemony when it comes to tower wars. Ironically the downfall was started by the most active pvpers. Another ironic thing is that the downfall happened due to pvm conflict. Silirrion: (We have pretty good anti-troll filters by now though) Means: Thong-wearing troxes will always be a part of this game and a point of AO pride. Keldros: Obviously reall trolls don't use conditioner Marlark: If this forum was Swedish in it's language .. id pawn you any day. 220 NT: tl7 is a joke most of the time. 90% of the people are double double dead. some are worth debuffing tho. Mastablasta: you guys are right and I'm wrong. Ebag: No. You alpha me'd due to the stat bug. More Ebag: I don't have any twinks currently, nor do I participate much in mass TL7 PvP (though I do go occasionally, usually just to watch). Questra: an MP in sneak eNSDed me and did about 20k damage in 10-12 seconds

  3. #3
    But if they could implement this idea... alot of coding now, saves money on coding later.

    WTB. I like this idea, but im with chrys on it.
    Towerblock, 220/30/70 Engineer
    President of Steadfast

    And way too many alts...

  4. #4
    Having not played Warhammer, I don't know how their pet system works. My understanding however is that very very few MMOs allow pet professions to use more than one pet at a time, though a few games make exceptions like Anarchy Online. AO is older, however and in the old days one pet type per 'class' of pet was enough, nowadays more flexibility is needed in our pets by far and away, especially given their limitations in the code such as pathing (which is just going to be tough and something we have to work around, this isn't a problem limited to AO itself), profession viability, and simple adaptability basically are screaming for us to get a more flexible pet toolset than what we have now, which is basically a long run of meatballs until we can start using either the IS urn pets (135, I used 'em well) or Biazu.

    We probably won't see what pets will look like stat and effectiveness wise until the beta server comes up, but I would like to see if others are interested in the concept here (gives me more reason to tell FC it's a good idea and to try to make it work) as well as more ideas than the 3 I have cooked up so far. Sure, it's the classic trifecta of pets, ranged, melee and tanking, but if there's another idea out there that could be cool that I don't know of yet, I'd be happy to hear about it.

    And while we're on the subject of attack pets and types, I'm curious to see if people would be interested in a line of pet taunts. This isn't to say we'll get 'em, this is more to see if there's interest in the idea of getting our pets taunts to better manage aggro. Rihwen's got 55k HP after all, I'd be interested in giving that fat green monkey the ability to get and hold aggro when I need it to. Sure it'll be short lived with our current healpet, but that just means we need better and more healpets (and probably lines, I should start another thread on that!)

    Any rate, wtb more input!

  5. #5
    Are you saying to have both a low damage/high taunt/high hp tanking pet aswell as a high damage/low hp/ranged pet at the same time to take place of our current attack pet? If so, I'm all for it. If you have to choose between the two, then no thanks because my damage is already pretty slow in soloing with the damage we currently have.
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  6. #6
    Nope, just several varieties of pets to choose from for an 'attack pet'.

    This isn't to say that we might or might not get a nuking pet in the 'utility pet' line, just that this specifically deals with the attack pet line and splitting it not unlike what the rebalancing plan is for the Mezz Pet line.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Dancingrage View Post
    My understanding however is that very very few MMOs allow pet professions to use more than one pet at a time, though a few games make exceptions like Anarchy Online.
    Actually, the pet prof in Age of Conan, the Necromancer, can use a whole army of pets. It works differently than in AO, with petpoints. Normally, a necro has 8 petpoints, which allows him to summon 8 weak pets, 4 medium pets, 2 strong pets, or any combination of pets, like 1 strong pet and 4 weak pets. Necros can also sacrifice their HP to gain more petpoints, or sacrifice their petpoints to gain more nanodmg. They can get a perk that allows them to temporarily summon another dozzen of pets, and they get another temporary pet every time they make a fatality. So they can use well over a dozzen pets in total.

  8. #8
    I dont see to much good from getting tanking/taunting attack pets, mostly due to Enforcers having that function in this game. Balance wise it would be rather lame to steal their job. Plus once ppl might find it OP, they create drama on forums, FC might cave and we have the nerf of pets once again.

    Second thing is, if this pet is going to tank, then there is no means at all of healing it besides the limited 1.8k heal from Morti (to be improved i know, but by how much?). These mobs hed be needing to tank wont be ur avarage 2-3k hitting mobs, these are the 5-8k hitting mobs. Otherwise the tanking is no use.

    Seeing as we are heading towards a shield type weapon of defence and offence there is really no reason for a tanking pet, atleast if mobs are keeping about reasonable AR. What has kept the Mp different from Engineers and Crats is their inability to slowdown targets and thus facing them head on themselfs. Protection in this system was the evades we have. Sharing aggro with my pet has always been the most interresting part of playing an Mp for me, being able to get it to pet when im half hp, and switching it back to myself (with impossible effort ofc because its very hard) when my pet is at 25% hp.

    Its that kind of playstyle thats kept Mp different from other pet proffs and its the foremost reason i do still have my trox Mp. Handing the tast towards a tanking pet whom ull be healing in some weird way is not something i consider as fun at all.

    As for ranged pets that sounds decent and appliable but i do forsee coding problems in that area, like mobs/players running out of LOS and the pet not recognizing that it needs to move to keep doing damage. And stuff like ppl keeping kiting it so that it needs to cast each time, rendering the mob unable to land hits.

    Overall i dont see much hail in splitting up attack pets, having a more varied defence/mezzpet mechanism is very good for now. What id more like to see is a means of implementing variation in weapon types for the Mp itself and with a possibility of being able to taunt from ur pet back and forth, in a more organised way than up till now. It creates a more advanced playing style, with the use of much more braincells than just clicking on the /pet attack macro.
    Metafly7 220/30/70 "E"

    Advfly7 170/19/42 "E"


    Proud member of ~Spirit~ Rubi-Ka Atlantean

    Anarchy proves this quote wrong: "War would end if the dead could return." ~ Stanley Baldwin

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Metafly7 View Post
    I dont see to much good from getting tanking/taunting attack pets, mostly due to Enforcers having that function in this game. Balance wise it would be rather lame to steal their job. Plus once ppl might find it OP, they create drama on forums, FC might cave and we have the nerf of pets once again.
    No, it theoretically wouldn't be able to hold agg off other players due to lack of damage/taunts. But it should hold agg off a weapon-using (as opposed to shield) MP easily. This opens up a huge new realm of possibility for soloing (of the kind that doesn't revolve around finding the one tree in Inferno to run around).
    Second thing is, if this pet is going to tank, then there is no means at all of healing it besides the limited 1.8k heal from Morti (to be improved i know, but by how much?). These mobs hed be needing to tank wont be ur avarage 2-3k hitting mobs, these are the 5-8k hitting mobs. Otherwise the tanking is no use.
    Firstly we'd be asking for a %heal from a new healpet (let Morti dieplx). Secondly there is /follow healing, which would work if it had adequate taunting.
    Seeing as we are heading towards a shield type weapon of defence and offence there is really no reason for a tanking pet, atleast if mobs are keeping about reasonable AR. What has kept the Mp different from Engineers and Crats is their inability to slowdown targets and thus facing them head on themselfs. Protection in this system was the evades we have. Sharing aggro with my pet has always been the most interresting part of playing an Mp for me, being able to get it to pet when im half hp, and switching it back to myself (with impossible effort ofc because its very hard) when my pet is at 25% hp.

    Its that kind of playstyle thats kept Mp different from other pet proffs and its the foremost reason i do still have my trox Mp. Handing the tast towards a tanking pet whom ull be healing in some weird way is not something i consider as fun at all.
    A trox MP with a tanking pet, I imagine, would be able to focus on much more DPS than is currently possible in soloing (because of trying to juggle agg with your pet). So the role would be enhanced.
    As for ranged pets that sounds decent and appliable but i do forsee coding problems in that area, like mobs/players running out of LOS and the pet not recognizing that it needs to move to keep doing damage. And stuff like ppl keeping kiting it so that it needs to cast each time, rendering the mob unable to land hits.
    Yeah FC have never worked out how to make a ranged pet before. They can work, and they would be especially useful in places like Tara where sending in your melee pet usually results in it getting splatted in 3 seconds.
    Overall i dont see much hail in splitting up attack pets, having a more varied defence/mezzpet mechanism is very good for now. What id more like to see is a means of implementing variation in weapon types for the Mp itself and with a possibility of being able to taunt from ur pet back and forth, in a more organised way than up till now. It creates a more advanced playing style, with the use of much more braincells than just clicking on the /pet attack macro.
    You should try playing Warhammer to see the variety it opens up for gameplay options. With my Squig herder, what I would do is cast the Gas Squig early for the rush to lay down AoE's while using my SH to plink high value targets (bright wizards and healers). Once the gas squig dies, I respawn the ranged spiked squig if our tank line is still up to focus DPS on single targets - if the tank line is down I pull a horned squig to get into the thick of things and use its knockback to keep people off me. A well-played SH is remarkably versatile and, among the people who figured out how to play one, largely considered to be the most enjoyable class in Warhammer (I agree). It's really tactical and fun to play a pet prof with such a range of abilities and learning how to make them work effectively in different contexts. Whether FC could pull it off is another matter, given the limitations of this game engine. But I'm dying for another MMO that rips off the SH for gameplay, it's that good.
    bai2u!
    -::l2pvp!1::-
    Electronite: FFA also destroyed Clan hegemony when it comes to tower wars. Ironically the downfall was started by the most active pvpers. Another ironic thing is that the downfall happened due to pvm conflict. Silirrion: (We have pretty good anti-troll filters by now though) Means: Thong-wearing troxes will always be a part of this game and a point of AO pride. Keldros: Obviously reall trolls don't use conditioner Marlark: If this forum was Swedish in it's language .. id pawn you any day. 220 NT: tl7 is a joke most of the time. 90% of the people are double double dead. some are worth debuffing tho. Mastablasta: you guys are right and I'm wrong. Ebag: No. You alpha me'd due to the stat bug. More Ebag: I don't have any twinks currently, nor do I participate much in mass TL7 PvP (though I do go occasionally, usually just to watch). Questra: an MP in sneak eNSDed me and did about 20k damage in 10-12 seconds

  10. #10
    Aye. Attack pet variation including tanks, ranged etc gives options in many ways. You must consider more than just full team play with tank/doc. You need to also consider soloing, off-tanking, small teams of two or three players, different mob types etc.

    I've played a few games where the main pet profession has tank, nuke and DD melee pets - and there were many good reasons to choose different pets for different situations. It does make for more variety in play and more tactical solutions.

    It also doesn't make sense to reject the idea based on existing pet stats and support tools. If you're building a tank pet then you can give it more AC and defences... maybe even some reflect. You might even include some special perk heals that would only work on the tank pet.

    In principle, I like the idea. Implementation details are (as always) the key.

    X
    Last edited by XtremTech; Feb 13th, 2010 at 13:42:07.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Mazzarin View Post
    Actually, the pet prof in Age of Conan, the Necromancer, can use a whole army of pets. It works differently than in AO, with petpoints. Normally, a necro has 8 petpoints, which allows him to summon 8 weak pets, 4 medium pets, 2 strong pets, or any combination of pets, like 1 strong pet and 4 weak pets. Necros can also sacrifice their HP to gain more petpoints, or sacrifice their petpoints to gain more nanodmg. They can get a perk that allows them to temporarily summon another dozzen of pets, and they get another temporary pet every time they make a fatality. So they can use well over a dozzen pets in total.
    One of the best pet profs I ever played was similar, called a Mastermind, in a game called City of Villains. I had access to up to 3 weak pawn-type pets, 2 moderate but effective pets, and 1 really nasty pet (all at once, for a total of 6 pets)... the mastermind itself did very little personal damage, but in the form of utility powers. The mastermind that I played, seemed more geared towards engi effectiveness, but all the pets were ranged, had a "guard master" type power, and received groupwide bonuses equally as well as the team. I'd kill to have a pet class like that in AO, but i doubt itll fly in this system.

    Sounds very similar to the situation you described. Oh, and the mastermind had some really nice type pets (mercenaries/robots/zombies/ninjas) and their support abilities were pretty nice.
    Towerblock, 220/30/70 Engineer
    President of Steadfast

    And way too many alts...

  12. #12
    I like what I'm hearing here for input, it's good to see I'm not the only one who thinks several choices for attack pets wouldn't be a bad idea.

    As for a second damage pet, it's probably best to go suggest we get a nuking pet on the Utility pet thread if anyone is thinking about having 2 pets that are doing damage in any way.

  13. #13
    What about pet combinations doing that?

    With the new utility pets coming out, each utility pet could perhaps grant something unique to our attack/healpet. For example AAO, a stun/root proc, certain % resists, healdelta, evades, weapon range and so on.

    Half of the examples I gave would only work for reworked pets of course.

  14. #14
    As for the replies to my opinion, those are probable solutions, but in the way it was explained at first hand (what the OP asked) i didnt exactly like the tanking pet. Its needs more explicit thoughts and thats the second question, which i never answered ofcourse.

    Basically in the form of pets keeping aggro i still dont like it due to the way ive been playing Mp all this time. The interaction between pet and master, tanking off and on between the two, has always kept me interrested in Mps. Seeing other proffesions just stand out of sight, watching as their pets did the work allowed me to decide that those pet proffs were not for me.

    I like the interaction of Mp tanking together with its pets rather than commanding his pet to do it. The way i see it with a bigger taunt, ur not gonna be able to steal aggro as consistantly as u can atm. Thats what makes me say again that i dont really like the tanking pet, but its something personal i guess.
    And its definitely not gonna allow us to control the aggro switches at all. Better damage maybe, but thats not what im after, i can already kill most mobs accept maybe LotV and Left/Right hands (possibly doable with shield, but idc).

    The anoying thing about the total rebalance is that u cant really extrapolate or expect anything, so u wont know how mobs (solo or teamwise) are gonna be, so atm im just going with the information we have, rather than speculating.
    Metafly7 220/30/70 "E"

    Advfly7 170/19/42 "E"


    Proud member of ~Spirit~ Rubi-Ka Atlantean

    Anarchy proves this quote wrong: "War would end if the dead could return." ~ Stanley Baldwin

  15. #15
    Well, Fly, there's several things to consider here:

    First, the tanking pet is one of several pet lines in mind, the idea is a pet with the higher end of HP for both tanking and use in Damage to Pet scenarios. Taunts would be something the MP actually did actively to some extent on the pet, not something that came inherent with the pet...likely if no taunts were used the MP would probably be able to pull agg from it pretty quickly. Think the Cacodemon's 1 weapon versus the meatball's 2, for instance. If you want to continue the playstyle of aggro juggling, you'd probably have to find the pet type that woudl best suit the level of damage you put out.

    Second, I'm thinking of this alongside addition of pet taunting tools, and possibly detaunting tools as well. As of this point, MP aggro management revolves mostly around putting the pet on attack or follow while the MP uses a combination of nukes, debuffs and other taunting techniques to manage aggro. I'm hoping to see it be a bit more active and purposeful than currently, so when you want aggro, you tell the pet to detaunt (aka hit a nano that has the pet detaunt) and if you want to lose the aggro, you tell the pet to taunt (aka hit a nano that has the pet taunt). This doesn't negate the aggro juggling techniques developed by MPs previously, but would make implementing it or other soloing/playstyles more possible.

  16. #16
    Now that sounds good, if thats the deal im game
    Metafly7 220/30/70 "E"

    Advfly7 170/19/42 "E"


    Proud member of ~Spirit~ Rubi-Ka Atlantean

    Anarchy proves this quote wrong: "War would end if the dead could return." ~ Stanley Baldwin

  17. #17
    Tanking pets sound like an awsome idea, especialy for newer players, i remember playing my first char, a Nano-breed MP. With normal leveling gear the only really safe way i could solo anything was hiding behind a corner while the pets did the fighting.
    Altho with all the fancy gear from the expantions it has become pretty easy to tank fairly hard mobs yourself.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dancingrage View Post
    Not too long after this I found myself in the "In The Machine" instance, aka DB2 or Aune, and had the pleasure of watching my pet run around like crazy and do everything BUT actually find and hit Aune. Sure I could nuke, jump around, etc, but when it came to actually doing something with the pets vs. Aune, I was mostly a lump. Another situation which I had problems with pet range is the Beast, oddly enough. In order to get the attack pet to start hitting The Beast, I literally had to drag it up onto the platform where the Beast was standing, praying it didn't decide right then to drop it's infamous huge nuke or some other bit of nastiness.
    Aune can be a pain for pet users, but it's still pretty easy to use the attack pet atleast semi effectively.
    When Aune warps to a new location, put the pet on follow, jump over to the right platform and run up to Aune, and the pet should warp after you automaticly. This only works if the pet is not attacking.
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Catily View Post
    Aune can be a pain for pet users, but it's still pretty easy to use the attack pet atleast semi effectively.
    When Aune warps to a new location, put the pet on follow, jump over to the right platform and run up to Aune, and the pet should warp after you automaticly. This only works if the pet is not attacking.
    It still doesn't avoid the fact that designing an instance as a platform minigame when pet pathing is as poor as it is, is simply extraordinarily bad game design - just proof that pet profs are typically the last thing on the designers' mind (same with that Ado mob in the middle of the ocean - killing him is a retardofest even for a 220 MP).
    bai2u!
    -::l2pvp!1::-
    Electronite: FFA also destroyed Clan hegemony when it comes to tower wars. Ironically the downfall was started by the most active pvpers. Another ironic thing is that the downfall happened due to pvm conflict. Silirrion: (We have pretty good anti-troll filters by now though) Means: Thong-wearing troxes will always be a part of this game and a point of AO pride. Keldros: Obviously reall trolls don't use conditioner Marlark: If this forum was Swedish in it's language .. id pawn you any day. 220 NT: tl7 is a joke most of the time. 90% of the people are double double dead. some are worth debuffing tho. Mastablasta: you guys are right and I'm wrong. Ebag: No. You alpha me'd due to the stat bug. More Ebag: I don't have any twinks currently, nor do I participate much in mass TL7 PvP (though I do go occasionally, usually just to watch). Questra: an MP in sneak eNSDed me and did about 20k damage in 10-12 seconds

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Chrys View Post
    just proof that pet profs are typically the last thing on the designers' mind
    This is a surprise? Have you ever been on the BS?

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by crattey View Post
    This is a surprise? Have you ever been on the BS?
    Why? Everything there is working perfectly. By that, I mean, usage of teleporter step to keep those OP'd pets away from you and various crevices and other stuff, designed deliberately to stop your pets.

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