Curse

Silmor · Apr 15, 2005, 09:01 PM // 21:01

I've not noticed much change to it so far (tested on beast mastery 0, 4 and 11), other than that the pet will not attack anything you've not told it to attack (no more pet vs. wild animal fights either). This makes pets somewhat safer, but it feels quite similar; instead of occasionally attacking something they weren't supposed to attack (while sneaking for instance) they will now occasionally not attack even though you're under heavy fire and casting spells rather than target calling (I play a Mo/R, so I see plenty of such action).

Pets still 'stick' to a target for a while after you call a different target, and will still continue fighting an enemy until you put a large distance between yourself and the pet to force it to stop attacking and follow you.

Bringing a pet along still means you can't pull using a weapon, since such a pull counts as a target call for the pet, which tells it to attack the target you single out, which means it moves to melee distance of your target not only stopping the target from being pulled but usually body-pulling the monsters you wanted to avoid itself. This is identical to how it was.

In conclusion, it seems pets are currently locked in a 'semi-passive' mode, which makes them slightly more difficult to control but slightly less dangerous at the same time. A fair tradeoff, but unfortunately I can't say pets have become more useful let alone more powerful through the "beefed up" AI.

The pet attacks are interesting though, once they're done balancing those out and weeding out outdated shouts they might become interesting again.

Elythor · Apr 15, 2005, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Its definately easiest if Anet implement different pet AI modes.

Aggressive - attack closest target of opportunity in range of master's radar. But prioritized master's called target.

Normal - attack prioritized to: 1) master's called target 2) enemies attacking master 3) enemies attacking itself

Defensive/Passive - only attacks when pet itself comes under attack, or when master called a target

And then these 3 modes can be hot keyed to a button to cycle through the different modes.

uriel99 · Apr 15, 2005, 11:05 PM // 23:05

I played Anarchy Online for 3 years, and there I was the proud master of 3 pets at once... So I think we could just steal the basic pet control there

/pet nameofthepet action, basically

well taht is if you want one specific pet to do one specific thing... For necromancers who have like 3 bone horrors, that could be /pet action and all pets would behave the same.

/pet guard would ask the pet to only attack what attacks his master, and never attack first.

/pet follow would ask the pet to never attack anything, just follow his master

/pet attack would set pet on agressive mode and send him to attack what his master is targetting (this would be a good way to send pet FIRST, prior to any spell or attack)

/pet release would let us to finally get rid of that pet to charm something else (I heard stories of a guy who had charmed a strider and could not get rid of it... And I wish I can get rid of taht Melandru's stalker and get a wolf or something...)

And we really NEED a /pet rename newname... If we can't identify out pets in team and whatnot, at least, ranger 1 calls his pet Harpo, ranger 2 calls his pet Groucho and ranger 3 calls his Pipo... Or whatever. That helps ALOT.

As for necromancers, by the time they finish to type the /pet rename command, I guess the pet will be dead yet. Maybe there could be a "/pet petslot1 name newname" command. This way, the pet would be spawned wit ha name taken from some pet namelist. When first pet is summoned, he automatically takes the name Pipo, pet 2 takes the name Groucho, if Pipo dies, next pet will be called Pipo again, etc...

That would let the necro send his pets on different targets with /pet petname attack, wich could come handy. Like, you have 3 pets with you, and 3 monsters on your back. Send one pet on each, and run away like a coward, ashamed, but alive... Or send them all on the same target for teh win

Now, the ability to have a macro shortcut bar with some pet commands in there would be nifty, too...

Well, just my 2 cents...

Kyomi · May 02, 2005, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Pets? Not useful?
Not highly intelligent, or controlable, but still, I dont know what my ranger would do without her Stalker.

Things I've found out:
1. bleeding is your opponents worst enemy. for 5 energy, your pet can make a monster bleed (depends on beast mastery) for 12 seconds (at mastery 5 I think my skill is at) I take out big monsters like this. Nothing like a monster who is half dead by your third shot (this includes level 10+ monsters (I'm only level 12) )
2. Your pet may/may not be a good tank, but it IS an extra body. It will attack the first thing you click on (provided the path is not blocked) the first thing that attacks you (if you are afk and some thing sneaks up on you) or the first thing that attacks it (if you have not clicked on some thing for it to chew on)
3. You can amuse your friends by naming your pet funny things. Like a level 10 stalker, 'Spot'.
4. You only need 3 skills to make your pet useful, 4 if you really want it to rock. This gives you half your skills to Chain damage together. (Charm animal, comfort animal, Feral lunge, )
5. Monks can heal the things too. (Handy when your pet is the only thing between the monk and some thing with more teeth than IQ.)

A request... Where can I get a list of pets? I find some, but then people say they cant be tamed (like the moss spider)

DarkParrot · May 03, 2005, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Is there an easy way to release my pet stalker? I would like to tame another animal.

mikalar · May 03, 2005, 12:41 PM // 12:41

As a noob and Ranger I would love to know how begin using pets

I am only a level 3 atm though.

butcherboy · May 03, 2005, 02:28 PM // 14:28

I find my pet quite useful. If I die, it usually carries on the fight until I return. Also, it is nice to have something to literally tie up a few monsters while I take on one or two. At lvl 8 my stalker is quite a beating taker and disher. I did learn a valuable lesson when going north of the wall - it is better to take comfort animal along with you. On one side I feel limited by the 8 skills I can take in PvE, but reflecting back, it does keep the game quite challenging.

My only regret is not charming that lvl 5 bull in the pond lol.

Darqueshadow · May 03, 2005, 02:50 PM // 14:50

I have a Melandru Stalker that I noticed would level as I have however I noticed it appears to be capped at lvl 7 even though I am lvl 8 now. Is there a cap on pet levels and if so, what is a good pet choice for a Ranger that just started Post-Searing? Thanks.

Deagol · May 03, 2005, 02:56 PM // 14:56

You levels don't increase with the same speed. There probably is a cap for the pet, like there is for you, but it is higher than 7.

Pet have different strenght and weeknesses offsetting each other, in the end they are all equally good. Except maybe the bear, it certainly gives the most bragging right!

Last Gasp · May 03, 2005, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Your pet will lag a bit for a couple very obvious reason: He/she dies more than you do, thus gains less experience. He also might not be receiving the quest experience you do.

I use the pet up until around 15th usually, at which point the zones get too dangerous to effectively use him. He just gets owned over and over and over again. If I'm wasting energy trying to heal him, I'm not using that same energy to kill my target.

That said, I did take the time to dump my lvl 15 stalker today and charmed a black bear. I then went to the courthouse and tested out how quick it would be to level him up to something useful. It only took 10-15 very easy kills(i'm 20, the mobs are 7-8 or 17-18) to move him from 5th to 6th. From that, I expect catching him up to me won't be much problem. It'd be trivial if I could just put him into neutral mode so he wouldn't die.

The lack of real controls for the pet makes me feel that most of the points I'd put into beastmastery would be wasted anyways.

butcherboy · May 03, 2005, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Just a heel command would be nice. Of course, a free hunt command would rock so I could clear out all the critters 5 levels below me so I don't waste my time for 0xp and some junk. Let the pet go and play some.

I do note that there is no damage indicator for how much damage a pet causes - perhaps a green number would do?

Darqueshadow · May 03, 2005, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Thanks for the responses and it makes sense that the pet might lag due to not getting quest experience. I guess it would be a bad thing then that my highest skill set is beastmastery if the pets prove to be as ineffective as the posts seem to imply. Oh well, I can always roll another as I am not that far in. The benefits of not having to grind

jomandoor · May 04, 2005, 07:49 PM // 19:49

can you equip your pets or see there stats?

Epinephrine · May 04, 2005, 07:58 PM // 19:58

why reroll? Just reassign your attributes, the refund points are there for a reason, and they come back fast. I have juggled my characters from one setup to another numerous times.

Pevil Lihatuh · May 04, 2005, 08:23 PM // 20:23

just on the pet comparison thing; moa's certainly do NOT suck compared to stalkers, as some people have said

My ranger and my boyfriends both have pets: he has a stalker, i have a moa. Both are level 15. We both have them out as extra damage magnets only; no pet calls or anything, just charm and comfort animal (though we rarely heal them). And which pet dies more? Certainly not my Moa

It has saved my life many a time, and my bf constantly swears he just saw my bird take out x enemy by itself.

However right now i'm not going down the pet skills line simply because i would literally have to stand at the back with just basic arrows while using the pet skills and when i tried it the other day, it just didnt seem very plausible.

Basically im waiting til i reach level 20 to experiment with beast mastery properly; currently level 16 so hopefully i should soon be able to give some info on whether the attribute is worth it

Epinephrine · May 04, 2005, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Well, looking forward to good news on pets. After all, if the game is well balanced it should make for a decent weapon with points in it and skills assigned to it; if you have BM at 11+2 and a high level pet, with a few slots assigned to it it should be effective, let's hope so.

Vladamir · May 04, 2005, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunarhound

I beg to differ. The cats aren't far from the guy at all, and at one gold a piece, it wouldn't take very long for your typical grind-monkey, used to exploiting things like this for hours on end, to build up a stash of gold that would be pretty large for a newbie. Rather than hunt monsters and buy/sell items in Old Ascalon for money, as is probably intended, they'll simply sit around selling stalkers for free cash. This would not only kill all real trade among newbies in Old Ascalon, it would force all newbies to exploit the selling of animals in the same way if they wanted to be able to keep up with everyone else.

dude at no point in the game would it be worth it to spend more than a minuite on 1 gold

Vladamir · May 04, 2005, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davion

Fansite Friday #40

For your perusal kaiwyn

i would say in summary that was saying they are changing the pets so they attack your target. This is already implemented in current version.

Galatea Orea · May 04, 2005, 10:45 PM // 22:45

I played a Ranger all through the betas and after launch with a pet. I have no points in beastmastery. Nonetheless, I added two skills to my skill bar for my pet. Call of Haste and Feral Lunge. These are both early skills. I found that despite having no extra points in beastmastery, the use of these skills has greatly improved my pet's survivability and effect. With Call of the Hunter, she attacks quickly. When I see that she's engage, I issue Feral Lunge. This is particularly effective against opponent melee fighters who strike repeatedly, as she is more than likely to hit them in action, which gives them bleeding.

So, my tentative conclusion is that if you use a pet in PvE, you may find they will be far more formidable if you add one or two supporting skills to your bar.

Valerius · May 05, 2005, 05:26 PM // 17:26

soo... the list of all animals is... ?

- Melandru Stalker
- Stryker
- Moa Bird
- Bunny
- Wart Hog
- Bear
- Snow Wolf
- Lynx

is that it? i'm thinking of rearranging my build.. i'm lvl 20 and i think i want to have a pet... just want to know the full list b4 i chose...