Pets, Taming, and Ranching.

Befriending a animal sounds like a great idea

- I think the idea of discovery is blended in - for example - there is no clear cut "collar" for a particular animal ... the better the collar the greater the opportunity to tame any animal - but you won't know until you try

and I imagine some may not be tameable

At least thats what I think folks have mention - how its supposed to work - but of course everything is subject to change and I don't think they have given much thought to it - at least not publicly

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/crafting-mega-post.3663/page-7#post-63756
The basic taming skill is included under Gathering - Forestry

I don't know if there are different types of taming collars or not, but they should have different quality and enhancements, maybe enchantments, The better the collar is the easier it is to tame, or perhaps required to tame something. Either way I'll be making and using them in-game.

 

Thanks for the thread ... I knew it was in crafting somewhere

 

Quoting myself from another thread. This subspecies falls under the category of utility - for spying , scouting & harassment. I agree with the other posters that a full sized dragon is too powerful for any single player to wield. At the minimum, it should require a guild with a panopoly of powerful wizards/sorcerers to summon it, control it (for a limited period) and even then there would still be a significant chance of something going wrong.

Even the little guy above doesn't just go with anyone :

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Pseudodragon_(familiar)

Pseudodragons resemble miniature red dragons, but in looks alone. They do not commit evil acts; in fact they dislike evil acts very much. They do gain the power of fire like their large cousins starting at the master's 5th level.

Pseudodragons resemble miniature red dragons, but are red-brown in color rather than deep-red. They have fine scales, sharp horns and teeth and a barbed tail. Their cat-like personality makes them seem arrogant and demanding. They are often found in the company of arrogant and demanding wizards.

 

How does something like the "reindeer taming call" that was a purchase in the add-on store or the royal artisan "Unique ability to tame an elusive monster that an ordinary player could never tame. " work in conjunction with taming collars?

Does taming usually require a call AND a collar?

 

Off the top of my head (not a collar wrapped around my neck) I want to say both of those are just items that will summon the creature/pet to you. They need not be 'used' on an in-world animal.

Proper taming collars will most likely require the collar and the animal you want to try and tame. Not sure if pets (the cats and dogs, etc as seen in weekly updates) are summonable from items the same way the reindeer taming call would work, but that would be a consist method and take advantage of code re-use.

 

I spent thousands of hours taming and training pets (greater dragons, cu sidhes & swamp dragons) in old UO and it was my favorite part (besides artificing). I'd really like to see that in SOTA. But only the GDs were effective for fighting other monsters and even my super large 4.5s got it rough from PVP'ers. The PVP'ers would kill the tamer pretty easily and then the pet would be in trouble. And the cu sidhes & swamp dragons were only good as mounts really. But what great mounts! All of the other pets were really only useful for show or as mounts.

The old system limited how many pets you could stable and how many you could take out at a time for adventuring. Higher level tamers earned more stable slots. That worked well. I had a ton of pets via multiple tamer characters. If you're going to sell pets then you need to be able to have a big stable of them available.

I really hope that the devs will enable these kinds of possibilities. These were features that kept me hooked on the old game for a long time.

 

I had a cu sidhe with max healing trained up but I was always too far gone by the time he gave me a little heal. Unfortunately, it really wasn't as useful as it sounded. Tamers would go down quickly if they started getting attacked. But the cu were mighty cool looking mounts and I liked that there were lots of colors out there. I spent a ridiculous amount of time killing wild ones trying to spawn a blaze cu. Never found the darned blaze but had fun trying. And I really liked having a collection of different colored cu in my stable.

 

Yes 720 is the UO skill limit. You needed at least 110 of those (approximately with 120 strongly recommended) for taming skill plus up to 120 for animal lore to even control a greater dragon. And then you needed up to 120 more for veterinary skill to heal and rez the thing (which you have to do constantly since they die frequently). So half of your skill points in UO go to controlling the GD which means you don't have many skill points left for fighting and magic skills. That is what keeps the balance between tamers and other types of characters so that tamers don't dominate UO as some have worried would happen in SOTA. The PKs in UO joke about how easily they kill tamers. And they killed me and my greater dragons pretty much every time although the GDs were pretty effective against mobs of monsters.

 

I sure hope there will be a miner's pet like the UO fire beetle for smelting ore. It really sucks having to constantly journey all the way back to a town or home to smelt heavy ores.

 

If you own a house, we should have the option to actually have a stable, or at least something to tie up your pet to. Although it is possible that they will have stabling built into the system too. What if we were able to recall our pet and we only have a miniature taming collar with that pet's name on it? Then it wouldn't be a stable thing it would be a taming collar thing.

 

Ill just fill my lot with Rats

 

The collar idea for taming, sounds a bit wierd. I thought collars were placed to let other people know who the owner was. Ahwell. I read through all 13 pages, seeing if someone would share the point I felt and they did.

Multiple lines for pet taming. Taming, of course, Empathy, Animal Communication, Veternary skills, Animal Magnitism. Having to put so many points in one tree would limit your personal combat or magical skills. However it would let you have more than a Cat, Dog, or Parrot as a companion. The increased power of the animal would be balancing your effective combat abilities. Empathy? This would affect how well you could understand the nonverbal cues from animals so you know when they're unhappy or getting sick so they're less likely to run away. Communication, your own ability to teach the animal in question to understand your own verbal cues and understanding of their own. Veternary Skills, well animals aren't human and need a special doctor. IF you can heal your own sick animal then it's more likely to remain with you and not run away. Animal Magnetism, this affects how attractive you are to beasts and makes them less likely to want to run away. (Face it if you let your pet die alot or throw say a Pit Bull constantly up against Demons and Imps, that guys gonna run off when his tail is on fire once too often. Not perma death, run away.) Taming skill will be to catch the critter. All the other skills will make sure the pet wants to remain with you. Have someone with all those maxed a dragon would be less likely to leave. However sell it to someone with middle or low level skills in Empathy, Communication, Animal Magnetism and Veteranary skills, he'll log in to Find the beast has flown off.

As for the animals themselves. The one, robust, pet system I enjoyed for years had each pet have it's own skilltree and points allowing you to have an influence on what growth and training skills. You could have 2 Pits, one professionally trained to have jaws able to lock on and hold down a Moose by the leg while the other was constantly trained in evasion, hit and run biting, bleeding wounds with slashing teeth.

Each pet type would require a minimum of certain of the taming skills before sticking around, however minimum wouldn't mean it won't run away in certain situations. So the higher the better. Having a massive, epic, dragon who would be awesome to have? I had an idea.

Specific event taming. Find a mortally wounded dragon. Veternary skills to heal it up, attempt to communicate (if it's not language intelligence type), your animal magnetism to positively influence it's first impression of you. It could still try to chomp you (For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup) but if not. Well you got one. Finding a mortally wounded dragon would of course be epically rare because.. it's mortally wounded. After a specific time rate, it'll turn into a Dragon Corpse.

Would I give up combat and magical high skills just to be able to have any, and every, pet I want to have? In a heartbeat.

PS: If pets had their own skill trees. You wouldn't need alot right at the start. 3-5 well thought-out and balanced with in depth skills, passives and race abilities would be good to start. Then add 1-2 during updates. In 2-3 years have 15-20 dynamic pets. Have special event pets, rare drops only during that event.

 

I think these are good ideas @aree

 

Well I've had quite a few years to think of what I want in a pet system. Since I can't have everything though I just give the ideas sure to be popular. XD

 

After listening to the community hang out and discussions in the forum
I like the possibility for all of these to exist in the game (the trick would be to identify what works for what animal / non magic as well as magic creature alike …)
If there is something that you may like – throw it in there

1. Feed the animal (nurture over domination)
   1. Discover animals favorite food / place collar
2. Bond (nature speak)
   1. Can work in conjunction with “nurture”
   2. Discover animals favorite food / place collar
   3. Perform “favors” to accrue loyalty (imagine if an animal sends you on a journey?)
3. Magic (Coercive and nature speak)
   1. Place animal is a “trance”
   2. Perform favors for the animal to accrue loyalty

 

Could someone explain to me how a tamer with a dragon is any more "unbalancing" than a tricked out melee avatar with an Early Founders one hit kill crystal sword?

 

The crystal sword is a one time use

 

As a long time elven tamer / mage in UO, I would be really disappointed to see higher level pets banned completely. I agree, you shouldn't be able to just re-balance your skill tree and and go get an uber pet (dragon or otherwise). However, if the requirements for taming and controlling such a beast forced you to choose a specific skillset and to forgo other desirable capabilities, I believe the options should be available. I wouldn't expect to see the the grand master blacksmith that created my enchanted armor on the front lines as a peerless PvPer either.
In addition, I would want to see extensive training requirements which needed to be developed over time to build the actual skill (as opposed to the glyphs) to tame and control such a pet.
I'm not sure how the taming collars will work, but perhaps they could be an initial control mechanism that could fail over time making it incumbent upon the tamer to have sufficient skill to keep control of the pet once it has been "collar tamed".
The concept of a pet going wild due to poor treatment (see the graphic below ) or insufficient skill should definitely be part of the plan. I would also like to see the pack concept for certain creatures. A lone wolf might not inspire much fear, but a pack of them backed by even a mildly competent mage would be something to be reckoned with.
Getting back to dragons for a moment, I think it would be a stretch to keep one in a barn next to the house - so if we are going to be allowed to have them, how about a basement dragon cave with it's own ground level entrance (dragons make a mess if you let them walk through the house).

 

I love the whole idea of farming, breeding/caring for animals, growing plants, etc. (farmer-at-heart-stuck-in-the-city, lol) I realize that the first couple episodes this probably wont get in, but i would really, really like to see these incorporated at some point. I think it would certainly add to RP and to verisimilitude.

As for higher level animals as pets that fight for you... well i can see a pet wolf that fights for you or at the most a bear, that's much more realistic...and would be fun, especially for rangers and other foresty-types - also maybe not such high level but useful for other stuff we could have some kind of very small, bird-size flying lizard (tiny dragons), or maybe a summoned pet like the homunculus that appears in Blade of the Avatar...

But i think the whole dragon-as-a-pet thing has totally got out of hand on UO, I mean... a DRAGON as a pet? in your house?? wandering around town?? seriously?? oh god, please no! don't do it! PLEASE don't do it!