Curse

thorizdin · Jul 22, 2005, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by snipes

I've actually seen top 50 guilds using pets effectively in gvg and have tested that pets are actually useful and can deal out good damage here and there.

LotD is, or more acurately was till we started our smurf guild, a Top 50 guild. We are 61st ATM, and we have fought almost all of the top 100 guilds, many several times. I have not seen a top 100 team run a pet build. In fact, other than teams that are below 400, I haven't seen a single team with a pet since release. Granted, we didn't GvG for almost a month after release, but thats pretty indicative of the low state of pets.

Having said that, we have run a pet build where everyone brought a pet and most teams couldn't handle the mass confusion, however, I believe the meta game is well beyond that now and that kind of build wouldn't be successful.

Are their builds that can use them, certainly there are. However, no one that I have seen has found a method of using them effectively for any length of time. The best use so far has been as fodder for Death Nova or for making minions. Not the best use of two slots

midnyte13 · Jul 22, 2005, 07:51 PM // 19:51

what pet r u using or have you used?...the initial panther pet was ok....but thought Iwas upgrading and got a snow wolf....he's dead at the end of every enncounter....

Cymmina · Jul 22, 2005, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mhydrian

This game boasts about the most horrible pet system of any game I have ever played. The fact you need at least 2 slots 2 simply use a pet(comfort animal to keepit alive) is kind of excessive. But when consider this game has no controls whatsoever for pets its a real pity.

It's called balance. If you want a pet, you have to invest. If you aren't serious about beastmastery, you shouldn't be taking a pet at all. Use those 2 skill slots for something else. I take one for farming/easy missions (I have ~7 BM for Tiger's Fury), but ditch him for tough missions like Thirsty River, Elona Reach, Ring of Fire, etc.

In Ultima Online, You needed to invest 200 out of 700 total skill points to have a pet, and you weren't really that effective until you took up Veterinary for another 100 skill points... then Magery for another 100 skill points so you can have your pet travel with you. That leaves you with 300 skill points to invest in 3 other skills to get either a defensive ability to protect yourself or more firepower (fyi: few skills are worth having less than 100 points in them). Spending 2 out of 8 skill slots seems fair in comparison.

Manipulating a pet is not much more difficult than a henchman. The AI isn't quite the same (only engaging targets and backing off when you retreat is different), but it's a hell of a lot better than it was in beta. You had to have ~5 pet skills to make them worthwhile and Comfort Animal didn't used to resurrect, so you needed Revive Animal, too.

stingite · Jul 22, 2005, 08:49 PM // 20:49

For as much discussion on these boards as there is about pets, it would be nice to get a statement from anet on whether or not they have plans to work on them and which areas they actually deem worthy of their work. Infusing pets seemed like throwing us a bone so we could actually make it to the end of the PvE world with a pet by our side. It would be nice to know if they have any other plans at all in the works. Just a hint. pssst . . . new line commands. or psssst . . . improved out of the box beastmastery pvp template. or psssstt . . . better mid-range scalability for beastmastery attributes. Stuff like that.

Talesin Darkbriar · Jul 22, 2005, 10:57 PM // 22:57

OP~
Pets are optional - even for rangers.
Pets aren't human, they're animals. Why should they have human intelligence?
Lastly, people always complain about what they don't understand.
You fit this description.

StrongBow · Jul 22, 2005, 11:11 PM // 23:11

There is one problem!"Charm Animal" skill .. i can say the most passive skill in all GW. :S sad to say, you have to equip it, for only one reason *DUH* summon a pet

. Maybe to make it a bit functional they should allow this skill to "Push/Un-push" to engage/relase a target but that tends to be seen in future.

As for pet skills, i am really impressed but its something that takes time to master and you have to watch closely the pet attacks to syncho it with your pet skills.

Beastmastery sometimes it the key attribute for a Ranger to deliver his full potential and sometimes his bane to its utter failure.

quanzong · Jul 23, 2005, 12:25 AM // 00:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

one reasin why Thunderhead Keep is relatively difficult is, the dwarf king uses pet AI.

but pets are just not like hencheman, hencheman are full players, pets are not intended to be such.

You joking right, King has Pet AI, hahahah. I think you right though, 1st person clicks on king, king becomes his pet, I wish you could call him back, or give him spanking when he attacks.

Tellani Artini · Jul 23, 2005, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Why did they put pets in this game? For rangers to use them. It's nice to have an 80AL 15 damage absorbing tank in snake dance that gives me 10 energy every 8 seconds. Also nice to keep monks under 7 energy indefinitely with quickening zephyr up in tombs. Only problems I have with pets involve their resurrection in GvG, how they res back at base while I'm in the field and I'd have to run back to get them. That's a tough one to fix; just have to res the pet instantly I guess.

I used my pet in GvG back when we were ranked 25 or so, but mostly because we fought guilds that didn't realize that spirit spam is horrible in GvG. No mobility.

cookiehoarder · Jul 23, 2005, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by thorizdin

Pets are ok for PvE, especially early on, but they are worthless in most builds for PvP. In addition, they get toasted in the late stages of PvE because the can't be protected by being infused.

The lack of basic commands and the fact that they require so much real estate on your skill bar to even be decent is a sad fact. This is one area that GW really suffers by comparison to other online games.

Worthless in PvP? How funny you should say that, I tested out a Pet build in PvP around a month ago. I had Rangers blinding my pet, Warriors crippling it and running away, and Monks pacifying it. I am quite pleased with the "Controls" of the pet, sometimes they will stick on a target that I accidentally clicked, but hey, nothing is perfect. Yet, the people who were attacking my pet were probably lame...Premade people

Tuna · Jul 23, 2005, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talesin Darkbriar

OP~
Pets are optional - even for rangers.
Pets aren't human, they're animals. Why should they have human intelligence?
Lastly, people always complain about what they don't understand.
You fit this description.

Yeah, sure, a whole line of skills is optional. Energy storage on an ele is also technically 'optional.' Do you think henchmen have human intelligence? No, they don't. That is the absolute worst arguement justifing the stupidity of pets.

In responce to the topic: Pets and their skills are pretty decent, just the AI sucks to much to make them worth your time.

Myth Osis · Jul 23, 2005, 01:51 AM // 01:51

This has been argued in soo many thread before ..... WILL ANET do anything ........ well no.......

CLOSE THIS THREAD PLEASE as it brings no new information to the forums...

Azadaleou · Jul 23, 2005, 02:30 AM // 02:30

Pets own for pvp if you use the pet skills. The problem I have with the entire line is you need to carry Comfort Animal to revive and heal your pet, a heal for yourself and Charm animal which has zero purpose in pvp. This leaves very little room for pet skills and I think thats the problem many people have with the beastmastery line.

Tellani Artini · Jul 23, 2005, 04:30 AM // 04:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azadaleou

Pets own for pvp if you use the pet skills. The problem I have with the entire line is you need to carry Comfort Animal to revive and heal your pet, a heal for yourself and Charm animal which has zero purpose in pvp. This leaves very little room for pet skills and I think thats the problem many people have with the beastmastery line.

Try it without the heal for yourself.

F0ster · Jul 23, 2005, 05:47 AM // 05:47

ehh...i got my pet spider from the UW ....His name is 1337 .....or LEET ...either way you look at it....and he's just there for looks ...even though he does do some good dmg i must say

Mercury Angel · Jul 23, 2005, 05:58 AM // 05:58

I'd have to say it seems like King Jalis Ironhammer has at least some minion AI traits-

Go up to the entrance to the fort:

After you kill the monsters outside the front gate, he'll immediately aggro to the enemies up on the wall, and walk into the wall stupidly and just stand there, and once he's aggroed, he doesn't move... He just stays there and dies if you leave him behind for too long =\

Pets will unaggro, even if not right away.
Henchmen will unaggro easily. (Especially because the warrior hench can't get into melee range.)

Minions will remain glued to the wall indefinitely, and so does the King.

And while the above may be off-topic and largely pointless, this entire topic has been done and re-done in various incarnations, just thought the observation might be interesting related to the NPC AI.

Gaile Gray · Jul 23, 2005, 06:20 AM // 06:20

It's true that pets need attention. We don't pretend that they are perfect, and as you know, nothing in Guild Wars in set in stone, never to be examined or improved again. It's our objective in this area as in all others to continue to improve the systems and increase the fun factor by broadening your gameplay options.

We have had many discussions about possible changes. I was delighted when the ability to call targets was added, long ago. Small change, but it made life a lot easier, as a pet owner. I like the pet skills, too, and enjoyed their increase and refinement over the last months of Alpha. But yes, being able to have an animal follow some of the common dog obedience commands like "stay" and "heel" is a great idea, and the several other suggestions in this thread have a lot of value, too.

We do hear you and we will be making significant changes in the future.

Tourist · Jul 23, 2005, 08:03 AM // 08:03

Whoa, ANet speaks! Well, Gaile Gray, anyways. Gaile speaks! Huzzah!

as a related aside, this is one of the very few times I've seen someone from a developer interact with and respond to us po' folk here on a fansite forum. Very, very cool stuff. Very encouraging too, that last bit about "significant changes." Pet commands? Controllable behaviors(aggressive attack, guard pet owner, ignore attacks)? Enquiring minds, etc etc...!

Haloknight9 · Jul 23, 2005, 08:07 AM // 08:07

A little something I dug up in the builds forums... I thought it was pretty nice.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...796#post303796

snipes · Jul 23, 2005, 08:43 AM // 08:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by thorizdin

LotD is, or more acurately was till we started our smurf guild, a Top 50 guild. We are 61st ATM, and we have fought almost all of the top 100 guilds, many several times. I have not seen a top 100 team run a pet build. In fact, other than teams that are below 400, I haven't seen a single team with a pet since release. Granted, we didn't GvG for almost a month after release, but thats pretty indicative of the low state of pets.

Having said that, we have run a pet build where everyone brought a pet and most teams couldn't handle the mass confusion, however, I believe the meta game is well beyond that now and that kind of build wouldn't be successful.

Are their builds that can use them, certainly there are. However, no one that I have seen has found a method of using them effectively for any length of time. The best use so far has been as fodder for Death Nova or for making minions. Not the best use of two slots

Well everytime we've faced SNA they have had pets and we have found them to be quit annoying. Their build didnt revolve around pets, of course not, but merely had some incorporated into it. Custom Premades had Wolves. I want to be able to unlock pets. I want to choose which pet i want on my custom premade =). They are far from useless, but they arent very useful in the larger sense.

stingite · Jul 24, 2005, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

It's true that pets need attention. We don't pretend that they are perfect, and as you know, nothing in Guild Wars in set in stone, never to be examined or improved again. It's our objective in this area as in all others to continue to improve the systems and increase the fun factor by broadening your gameplay options.

We have had many discussions about possible changes. I was delighted when the ability to call targets was added, long ago. Small change, but it made life a lot easier, as a pet owner. I like the pet skills, too, and enjoyed their increase and refinement over the last months of Alpha. But yes, being able to have an animal follow some of the common dog obedience commands like "stay" and "heel" is a great idea, and the several other suggestions in this thread have a lot of value, too.

We do hear you and we will be making significant changes in the future.

Thank you, Gaile! That was the statement I hoping for!