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Tamed Constructive Criticism

Discussion in 'Release 23 Feedback' started by Bluefire, Nov 4, 2015.

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  1. Bluefire

    Bluefire Avatar

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    Unfortunately the R22 system was more enjoyable than R23. At this point the risk/reward is all about risk and no reward.

    The focus effect correction from "negative regeneration" to "reduction in total focus pool" was a step in the right direction. The beast attached to the taming necklace was nicely done. Unfortunately I had my pet for only 20 minutes so I didn't have a chance to notice this feature. I see nothing positive about the rest of the changes.

    My experience:
    Day 1-2 Leveled up to Adventure Level 23 to attempt entering Graff Gem Mines.
    Day 3-4 Found the MOBs to be quite a bit more challenging so worked up to level 27. Still found myself being easily dispatched by the Satyr Fighter. Mined about 40 silver.
    Day 5 At around level 30 I redid my attack bar and found I could finally toe-to-toe with the Satyr Fighter. Cleared out the two first levels of the mine and gathered 56 silver
    Night of Day 5 - Crafted 10 Taming Collars and a Summoning Whistle.
    Attempted to capture a Large Grizzly Bear (<1% chance with 7-15 HP left) - gave up after 4 collars consumed.
    Attempted to capture a Grizzly bear (<1% chance with 7-15 HP left). The next 6 collars were consumed
    Day 6 - Gathered 65 more silver and enough iron/copper to have enough to 10 more metal bindings.
    Day 7 - Crafted 10 more Taming collars.
    Used 2 on Grizzly bear.
    Used 2 on Large Brown Bear and obtained pet.
    Fought another Large Brown Bear with him and discovered that the pet bear is smaller than the wild bear. Fought three other Large Brown Bears and discovered that every time my pet bear was severely out damaged by his wild self. This leads me to believe that Combat Training is going to be about making him as strong and maybe a little bit stronger than his wild self. Not very logical.
    Fought two wolves in Eastreach gap. I initiated agro and engaged one wolf. Another ran over to join and immediately went for the bear. I engaged the second wolf and the first wolf's agro turned to the bear and the second wolf refused to agro me. The pet bear did not flee - it died very quickly.
    Consumed my last 6 collars attempting to tame another Large Brown Bear (14% with 7-15 HP left).​

    Overall Take-away: Pet taming should not be a rewardless chore like this. This is not fun.

    First a collar should not be consumed on taming attempt. Could you imagine if we lost smelting tongs (insert other crafting tool here) on every craft? I can understand the idea that on occasion we would nearly have a creature restrained and it gets away with the collar around its neck. I cannot imagine using 10 collars on one very injured creature and losing all the collars. When I give up and kill the creature the collars should be sitting right there for me to pick up. However this seems overly complex and like I must be the dumbest person ever when it comes to capturing an animal (okay, granted I'm supposed to be taming...)

    Collars
    A collar should be consumed on a successful taming event. It would also make sense to have decay on collars. After a couple hundred taming attempts it should need repair or like some tools just need to be deleted. It is not reasonable to spend days gathering resources for 20 minutes of taming attempts. Collars should not cost 3,000+ gold on a public vendor.
    There should not be a skill to reduce the chance of collar consumption that will require thousands of pet pulls to provide a few percentage points chance. How is this fun? Please remove collar consumption on fail and the new skill to reduce it.

    Taming
    I should have a very good chance at taming a creature that I can best in a fight. Taming should only be partly tied to number of taming attempts. My taming effort (time) should be what matters on taming a pet:
    1. The time I put into managing the fight. If I can outlast the creature there is certainly no reason I should not be able to eventually tame it. Make taming impossible to do if other people are aiding. A second player hits the animal and the taming attempt fails. Another player heals me and the taming attempt fails. Either that or use adventure level and give a bonus for taming level. It is difficult to grasp how I can easily kill a grizzly bear but have a <1% chance of taming it.
    2. The number of attempts I'm willing to spend time on trying to capture a creature that I have little chance capturing. If I want to spend 16 hours trying to capture an obsidian bear I should be able to do so without needing to first spend weeks down in the mines to obtain enough materials to build enough collars to attempt this. In the current system this is supported by the idea that I should consume thousands of collars to level up the taming skill. Obviously my chances should improve as I get better at taming and I gain a higher adventure level. Some creatures should require a lot of experience and extreme luck, of course - like baby dragons if they ever become tameable/exist in game.
    Summoning Whistle Necklace
    Why do we need to wear it? In inventory, sure. Around neck? No. This makes two penalties for pet owners. I cannot test to see if removing the necklace after calling is feasible since my pet died. But I don't want to be forced to wear certain garb to be functional in a game.
    [A good point was brought to me that this is how the pet to call is summoned.] With that in mind let us drag the whistle to the toolbar to call the pet as an option opposed to using a skill that has to fire on the whistle being worn. Again, two penalties is not good. From what I have surmised necklaces are going to be about bonuses to base stats.

    Summoning
    This doesn't make sense as a skill that levels up, but leaving it tied to pet pulls seems fine - need something to determine we can unlock advanced tamer skills. In the current system this is imagined as 42 pet pulls, though. A bit of a flawed concept there. If we followed the rules that would be over 42 hours of game play before we could start increasing skills for pet useage. By using a nice area to pull and be killed this means 42 deaths or about 80 minutes - still a bit excessive. Who wants to intentionally watch their avatar die to unlock skills for their pet? It might make more sense for leveling in this to come from time chilling with the pet out and running around. Level 2 - 15 minutes, Level 3-5 30 minutes each, Level 6-7 37.5 minutes each, Level 8-9 45 minutes each. Time accumulates across sessions.

    Concentration
    I agree that the additional bit of damage and the shield a pet can provide needs to have some down side. With a skill to reduce the focus penalty this seems like a greatly improved system. It should not be based on pet pulls, though.
    Concentration experience (leveling) should be acquired from engaging in fights with the pet.


    Perma-death
    No, no, and no. This is more negative than running out of focus in release 22.
    Resurrection within the next 60 seconds? "Thank you sir, may I have another" is the nicest phrase that comes to mind here. Pretending I have the skill and that it can be cast while in combat it's probably unlikely I have the focus available to cast the skill in the next 60 seconds.
    Why not make us lose our favorite weapon every time we are killed or lose everything in our inventory on death unless we can take a mage down to our dead body and resurrect it? Because it is a terrible waste of time and an overly harsh punishment for a game. So are the above solutions to pets getting killed.

    This is where a cooldown should apply. Your pet is off healing you will not be able to use it for an hour unless someone can resurrect it. For the next real hour pulling your pet will show you a sad reminder that you chose a bit too much of a battle for the broken husk you see before you. Either it needs to be resurrected or an hour from now you can resume normal play with your pet.

    This current system makes putting effort into "Obedience" is self defeating! My bear should have ran away from the fight I was in today. Not just a bit away and wait to be attacked again (he didn't even do that), but fled from the scene completely and I should be stuck with a cooldown timer. Okay, that makes sense. Fighting to the death should not have occurred because after all I do not have any combat training at all.

    Obedience
    Not a good skill to have in a perma-death system. If returned to a cooldown timer only solution then it is a useful skill to have.
    Obedience should level up from successful fights with the pet in defense or aggressive mode. If the pet flees then no experience.

    Refresh
    First, the cooldown timer does not make sense in actual game play. I'll equate it to only being able to cast a summoning spell once an hour or even better being able to pull a bow once an hour. If this is not necessary for magic then it certainly should not be necessary for a live pet.
    Refresh should be applied against your pet recovering from a fight gone bad that resulted in the pet fleeing or dying. Instead of a full hour of being without we should be able to reduce it to 5 minutes through grandmastery or whatever level 120 would be called.

    I did notice that while traveling between zones the cooldown timer seemed to disappear when it was more than 5 minutes after pulling the pet. If this was intentional then it is almost a step in the right direction - but why should we be penalized for zoning? Either keep the pet by our side when zoning or remove the cooldown for all but pet fleeing/dying in combat.

    Refresh leveling should be acquired from active play with the pet in the wild, not necessarily fights but rather time spent in risky areas with the avatar engaged in activities such as fighting or gathering.

    Hope this feedback helps. Right now I am just told that the pet system is a complete waste of time and I'm in agreement with the current system in place.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2015
  2. Solstar

    Solstar Avatar

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    I think now that multiple tamed creatures that can permanently die will be the norm, consuming a collar only on successful taming will be the natural progression in design.
     
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  3. Bluefire

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    I hear you and I hope that sticking to the permadeath solution is not the case. I have played games that had great pet systems for the players. This game doesn't need to settle for a time sink that results in perma-death. This will become a little used system that wasn't worth the effort spent coding it. Only used by the die-hard player who will do everything it takes to get an ultra-high end pet will waste their time. Then the pet will just be an in town show-and-tell as there is no sane reason to pull it for any worthy combat. If, for some reason, pet replacement is considered necessary, then perhaps a decay on a pet that prevents them from dying more than 100 times would be a better solution - at least we could choose to no longer use that pet in combat. Less than 10 minutes of pet ownership for 20 collars crafted and down the drain? That is not reasonable.

    One game had it to where anyone could have a low-level pet without pet handling skills. If you wanted to handle better pets you had to invest skill points into the 'profession' and then you could tame and handle more advanced creatures. You could pull and store the pet every few seconds (except in combat), could feed the pet to give it a bonus, if it died you just stored it and pulled it out again, and it was theorized that if you got the pet killed too much it would escape but no one ever reported that being the case.

    There is no reason this has to be a punishing skillset.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
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  4. Solstar

    Solstar Avatar

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    The reason I think the permadeath system will be staying is to facilitate the taming/selling business just like UO. While having a combat pet die stinks, it makes having and keeping one alive mean more. Once taming isn't so restrictive on time and money due to burning through collars on a failed attempt, it will make taming more viable.
     
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  5. Sara Dreygon

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    +1
    Great feedback and I hope @Chris takes a look at it. Don't tag Devs often but I feel this is worth it.
     
  6. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    Pets are still pretty Op if you ask me.
    Sure the price of getting one is far too high.
    But if you have a decent one you get an pretty hefty buff in combat.
     
  7. redfish

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    Another reason for permadeath is probably they want to make a distinction between add-on store pets and tamed pets, so we can have some of the add-on store pets tamable in game. Last release I suggested that add-on store pets shouldn't die, but shouldn't be usable in battle, while tamed pets could die, but could be usable in battle.

    Though, are pets currently healable / resurrectable ? I would hope they would be.

    Also, they could always make the death conditions different. For instance, for a while I've been suggesting an injury system for player death, where on death a player accumulates an injury (like in Dragon Age) that can be treated. This could maybe be carried over to pets, also. And maybe make it so if pets accumulate enough injury, they can't resurrect. Or something other than that, which gives players some type of slack but still allows pets to die. Sort of like you can always repair weapons, but they become more expensive to repair the more damaged they are.
     
  8. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    UO does not have pet permadeath...
     
  9. Solstar

    Solstar Avatar

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    The UO I played did.
     
  10. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Which was??
     
  11. Solstar

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    Second Age, 99-00.

    And before anyone goes off on a tangent about game comparisons, it was explicitly stated here that pet death was to facilitate the taming trade.

     
  12. Bluefire

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    They are healable and for 60 seconds after death they are resurrectable.

    Wounds is another term for what you are suggesting. I loved wounds in SWG (preNGE). If you got too wounded you completely ran out of action (focus) or health because literally wounds reduced your max health and max action.

    Pets certainly should not encounter perma death from one wrong encounter regardless of whether collars change or not. Personally I think the entire idea of carrying an economy of pets as being more important than people enjoying, naming, and keeping the pet they want is harsh and short-sighted. The one thing I do not recall bio-engineers or creature handlers complaining about was the inability to find new pet customers. Perma death for a pet should only be when the owner decides to release the pet. I've played it that way and it is the only thing that makes sense to me. Perma-death is way to high a price. Since we can apparently keep as many necklaces as we want I fail to see the potential over-abundance of pets. In SWG you could only hold a few pets at any given time and, again, I don't recall any lamentations about how unfair it was the pets never died so the crafters could make more pets. Another stark contrast was that if you went crafter in that game you either went completely crafter or you could not provide your own building materials nor master more than one crafting profession.

    I've played games with and without decay and even with all the high-end content coming only from elite PVP rewards and high-end PVE instances I recall many sought after weaponsmiths, armorsmiths, and pet handlers. I'm glad SOTA isn't considering making high-end content drop the best weapons and armor but decay like we had in R22 (it seems less painful this release - but is still much too high) and perma-death are not essential in fostering a good economy. Instead, decent credit sinks and consumables to buff weapons and armor keep things rolling. Wound kits would be a good add for healers to use to treat wounds. I view the decaying tools like moulds as a good start at proper credit sinks. The 1500 gold passage through the passes will be a nice credit sink one day, but today it's a costly option that I would never consider.

    If the pet system is going to be all about supply and demand you can count me as one of the people out of the demand, permanently. I want a companion that is fun to pull out and hunt with not something I have to be extremely careful with. Not something that I need to spend tons of gold on to purchase, tame, or maintain.

    This needs to be about an avatar's quest and having fun not all about player economy. There will be plenty of crafted items to make money off of and rare valuables for collectors that is much more important than making 120,000 gold off an obsidian bear or 1 billion for a dragon.
     
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  13. redfish

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    Yea, whatever you call, it I think wounds/injuries would be a great mechanic both for players and for player pets.

    Anyway, I am hoping that some of the pets they have from add-on and pledges like eagles and owls and ravens will also be in the wild, and if they're in the wild, they'll be tame-able. So think they do need to have some firm hard distinction between cash pets and tamed pets. The economy is also a worthwhile aspect to discuss. Like I said, that might just be like weapons, which are maintainable at a cost, and if they get to zero durability (perhaps) break. Injuries on a pet would cost you and you wouldn't want their max health to drop to zero.

    I think maybe max focus could be affected by something hunger, until maybe starvation kicks in and you get injuries.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
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  14. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    That was some time ago. An oldie but a goodie! One whose time has past.
     
  15. Rasmenar

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    I agree with everything in this post except for pet permadeath. I think that pet permadeath is something that should stay. What I would like to see is an increased grace period for resurrecting the pet based off of how "attuned" to that given pet you are - the more you use any given pet, the longer the window for resurrection.
     
  16. Bluefire

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    Why does permadeath need to stay? To me it is the single greatest reason to ignore the entire concept. I'm not here to perpetuate a profession, I am here to play a game.
     
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  17. Krohon

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    Fully agree.
     
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  18. Tydes

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    Well thought out post, I agree with a lot of what you have said. I hope the devs read the OP and consider some of the content when making future changes to taming.

    My own experiences with the skill were equally disheartening. I crafted 15 taming collars and went off to acquire a companion!! At first, I thought I would get one of the spiders that I have been hunting lately. To my surprise I was met with a indicator which stated that I had a <1% chance to tame this thing. Argh!! After a few attempts, I resigned the fact that I would not get one of these spiders and went off to try a smaller and weaker spider. I was given the same <1% chance to tame. For the record, these spiders reside in a zone which I have been adventuring in for the past 30 levels, so I feel that the creature is not completely out of league.

    I gave up and went to north vale and tried to tame the small wolf spiders. This time I saw a 33% chance!! Woohoo.... but unfortunately, I still failed and my taming collar was lost.

    15 taming collars, and nothing to show for them.
    Average price on the public vendor is approximately 2,500gold. ( x15 = 37,500gold ).

    :( this was not an enjoyable experience at all.
     
  19. Coolwaters

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    Yep. I've made collars, but I'm not going to waste the gold until something changes. Given the expense and difficulty of obtaining mats to make them, I think collars should have a durability that is consumed on unsuccessful attempts. That way the expensive collars would only be destroyed / consumed on successful tames or many, many unsuccessful attempts (when the durability is consumed).
     
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  20. royalsexy

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    @Sindariya you've managed to raise your taming, would you care to add your voice?

    As far as I can tell, from the days spent mining in Graff to make a bunch of collars, then not being able to catch a 2hp chicken... it's really hard to tame anything now! I pulled my chest mimic out to train my cooldown timer, and had to die and summon him 10 times before I went from level 1 to 2, which brought my cooldown from 60mins to 59 minutes. Still a really long time to wait to summon again.
     
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