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The Care and Feeding of Pets
axenome
Posts: 97 Arc User
Pets are an (unfortunately) broken aspect to the CO experience, and their coding/construction makes them depressingly lackluster.
I've heard of pets referred to as comparable to DoTs, which they really aren't.
1) A DoT can't be killed. With only 1 or 2 exceptions from certain healing powers, you have to let a DoT run its course.
2) Successive DoTs do not become more expensive to cast with each DoT you have in play.
3) You can affect multiple targets at once with a DoT, but a pet can target only one enemy at a time.
4) Area effect powers don't reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of DoTs.
Now, advantages the pets have:
1) A single pet can (potentially) be used for multiple fights.
2) A pet will continue fighting while you're stunned, knocked, or paralyzed. You can't cast a DoT during any of these.
There are others, but this is more to state that there are good and bad to both, and I'm aware THAT there are differences as well as what a few of them are.
Now, things that have been asked for in the past:
1) Repairing the interface for Pet commands. Pet commands are broken on the individual level; for RP purposes they're pretty unusable, and your options with "controllable" pets are to give all of them the same command. Which vastly reduces their ability to tank, support, or deal damage in a controlled or precise fashion. Attempting to give a single pet an attack command, a hold position, etc (kinda important for the healing pets so they're not playing around in melee when they could be healing at range) cannot be done. That interface is broken. It would be REALLY nice to give them individual commands.
2) Expanding the list of costumes for pets so that a theme can be followed (Angels, wolves, bears, robots, etc). Yes, this mucks about with the themes of the archetypes but let's be real, F2P doesn't get freeform powers without paying for them and can't reskin pets, so it's not like this is too gamebreaking.
3) Expanding the pets themselves so that you can do more with them. Perhaps an entirely new class of powers can be created for pets, much like the Brick or Elemental tabs in the powers. Move all pet powers to the new pet tab, then you can justify a bit more flexibility with them. It's not like there aren't enough pets to justify it.
I'm not creating this thread to be a complaint thread, but rather as a thread in which problems, ideas, and solutions can be tossed back and forth in the forum fashion, so as to come up with ways to improve quality of life as well as give fresh takes on the pets themselves so that this thread can ultimately be used to enrich the playing experience and world we enjoy.
I've heard of pets referred to as comparable to DoTs, which they really aren't.
1) A DoT can't be killed. With only 1 or 2 exceptions from certain healing powers, you have to let a DoT run its course.
2) Successive DoTs do not become more expensive to cast with each DoT you have in play.
3) You can affect multiple targets at once with a DoT, but a pet can target only one enemy at a time.
4) Area effect powers don't reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of DoTs.
Now, advantages the pets have:
1) A single pet can (potentially) be used for multiple fights.
2) A pet will continue fighting while you're stunned, knocked, or paralyzed. You can't cast a DoT during any of these.
There are others, but this is more to state that there are good and bad to both, and I'm aware THAT there are differences as well as what a few of them are.
Now, things that have been asked for in the past:
1) Repairing the interface for Pet commands. Pet commands are broken on the individual level; for RP purposes they're pretty unusable, and your options with "controllable" pets are to give all of them the same command. Which vastly reduces their ability to tank, support, or deal damage in a controlled or precise fashion. Attempting to give a single pet an attack command, a hold position, etc (kinda important for the healing pets so they're not playing around in melee when they could be healing at range) cannot be done. That interface is broken. It would be REALLY nice to give them individual commands.
2) Expanding the list of costumes for pets so that a theme can be followed (Angels, wolves, bears, robots, etc). Yes, this mucks about with the themes of the archetypes but let's be real, F2P doesn't get freeform powers without paying for them and can't reskin pets, so it's not like this is too gamebreaking.
3) Expanding the pets themselves so that you can do more with them. Perhaps an entirely new class of powers can be created for pets, much like the Brick or Elemental tabs in the powers. Move all pet powers to the new pet tab, then you can justify a bit more flexibility with them. It's not like there aren't enough pets to justify it.
I'm not creating this thread to be a complaint thread, but rather as a thread in which problems, ideas, and solutions can be tossed back and forth in the forum fashion, so as to come up with ways to improve quality of life as well as give fresh takes on the pets themselves so that this thread can ultimately be used to enrich the playing experience and world we enjoy.
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Comments
Those two main things- better scaling (somehow), and better UI to also combat AI issues- would go a long way into making pets more valuable in CO.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
I also liked the idea that the OP touched on of a "Free Form Pet". Then you only have to deal with the technical improbability of this being possible with the current game. But the idea is awesome...
I would also like to put out the idea of a different Pet power: Energy. Like a Heal, but for a characters energy. A fairly common ability in comics and writing in general, but not addressed very well in CO.
Not anymore
Gold since Christmas 2015
It...didn't work out very well.
Pets themselves are inherently weaker than an equivalent power because they're subject to AI and they can (usually) be killed.
The advantage (or rather an attempt at catching up to an equivalent build) only comes in when they allow you to perform multiple actions within a given time (like if you've got multiple pets).
Forcing petmasters to build for certain specific stats as well as forcing them to spend most of their power picks on things they can't control ends up disadvantaging them against non-petspam builds.
While I personally hate pet builds in CO with a burning passion, there's no reason to make them weaker than they already are.
There are good enough reasons to take Pre and Int (two of the three stats you mentioned) with pets currently anyway (auras affect them, some have cooldowns).
If they need additional scaling (which I think some do), just tie it to Superstats like most everything else, instead of to specific stats.
Keeps it simpler, gives pet builds a bit more flexibility in setup.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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The user formerly known as Dr. Sage.
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- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!