Change Vet to Kill-Based
Instead of pets gaining Vet levels through time spent in battle, have them gain V though kill count. The more things they kill/participate in killing, the more experience/Vet levels they get.
Wouldn't work for pets like Shield, Siphon, and Tachyon Drones that don't have weapons to kill anything with.
When I went to switch them to docked mode, they came back to ship but they did not dissapear for about 30 seconds, and after they dissapeared, I went to resummon them both by giving them a new command and relaunching the fighters with the launch fighter button but nothing happened. The fighters did not reappear and I can not launch any new fighters unless I log out of the game and back in.
I believe the entire new UI system is bugged, or broken completely.
This happend to me as well on the Vesta with the Advance Danube pets.
Tested my Mirror Vo'quv in Kerrat with Mirror BoPs
We seem to have lost the cloaking special ability. When you put them in recall they come to the ship and dock. They used to cloak and hang around which made them more accessible. Maybe if docking and undocking worked correctly this would be less of an issue, but right now they dock and they are gone (I know its a bug). Also, as other people pointed out, the AI seems to ignore the defend/attack mode rules and will go off attacking targets on the other side of the map. Recall was good at preventing that, but doesnt really work now.
This also raises the point (as was raised by others already) that we dont really have an alternative to the old recall/standby functionality. It was useful to have them at your disposal.
Something else down this path of thought: pets in space are really companions in the same way that BOFFs and pets/summons on the ground are companions. It would be a good time to normalize some of their behaviors. Generally speaking, the ground companion behavior is more manageable and I would replicate that into space, but there is some room for additional improvement here. This is what I would like to see as common behaviors
1) Attack the selected target and return to rally point when finished (this is limited to targets in range of the captain)
2) Aggressively defend the rally point
3) Follow the target passively (selected ally or myself as default)
4) Dock (not useful for current ground pets but maybe useful later)
Another thing here is it would be useful to be able to set a rally point in space. Then I could telll my pets to defend an area, as in C&H, instead of forcing an ally to sit there and have the pets defend him. Hard to do this in space, but maybe add a "drop rallypoint marker" button that lets me mark my current location, then I have the ships defend it and I can move on to my next objective
I'd like to add my voice to the chorus: PLEASE FIND A MECHANISM TO REDUCE PET ABILITY COOLDOWNS. I am not sure if I agree that all pet ability cooldowns should be lowered to the general respawn timer for them - I feel like at times that could be slightly better than the current paradigm just because there's a few seconds where pets need to line up on the target or close the range, and some seconds where they 'wake up' after they launch.
All that said and done, at the very least carrier pets need to be skilled up in their abilities. Increasing the DPS boost from veterancy by a factor of two would not be a bad idea as well - after all, this complaint stems from the fact that many pets don't actually do all that much damage with their weapons and need their abilities to be useful. If abilities didn't need to be spammed as much due to increased weapon damage then it's all good, though that in turn reduces the pressure to get higher valued pets. I'd definitely remove the 4% DPS hit as it is not necessary when considered alongside the DPS hit from lack of ability refresh.
Do pets fly at balanced energy levels? I feel like that may be the case and why their energy weapons are so unimpressive when their AI does finally turn to face the target. Perhaps pets should change their power levels based on their class and their mission? Speed mode for recall, Shield mode for escort, Weapon mode for intercept/attack mode? Unarmed pets or pets with highly Aux-dependent skills would want to either run in an aux-heavy mode or be able to switch to that before using their abilities.
Gaining full veterancy in 3 or even 2 minutes would be extremely good - or having advanced pets spawn at rank 1 and elite pets spawn at rank 2. As other have noted five minutes is an eternity in a STF.
Allow Pet Summoning while Pets Exist
In the new system we can only summon replacement pets when there are vacancies in the wing. Put the system back to where it is now, that we can spawn pets as often as we like. This has the balance of getting refreshed pets (healed, abilities not on CD, near us ready for new orders), but the pets lose their vet status.
Add a "Self Destruct" button.
Allow us to manually Self-Destruct our pets if they misbehave or simply at our leisure :P Then we can summon fresh ones.
Add a "Hold" option
Basically looking for an option to recall the pets, but do not dock.
Lessen Vet Build up Time
Five minutes to get to optimal level seems too long. Either lessen the whole time (3mins to V5 seems better) or make it scaling, where getting to V1 only takes 15s, V2 another 30s, V3 60s, V4 90s, and V5 120s.
Change Vet to Kill-Based
Instead of pets gaining Vet levels through time spent in battle, have them gain V though kill count. The more things they kill/participate in killing, the more experience/Vet levels they get.
Thanks for reading.
Well, no problem, it wasn't the largest wall of text I've seen.
Why don't you try to keep it simple? Here's another suggestion:
-Allow Pet Summoning while Pets Exist
-Add a "Self Destruct" button
Instead of these two, we would need a "recycle"-button, that causes the Hangar-Bay to instantly allow a new spawn without resetting the veteran-status of the pets. Maybe a Beam-to-Hangarbay animation... This would also replace the need of the new recall-function, so the old one could stay.
-Change Vet to Kill-Based
Kills, contribution to kills... That sounds like "damage-dealt" by this pet. How should that work for Siphon-Drones or something like that?
If we think about an STF and a Danube holds a Sphere with its Tractor-Beam in place, so that a Fer'Jai can use it's famous Tricobalt mines on the Sphere, how do we sort that out? And if the Tricobalt-Mine also kills the Danube, does it then also gain a new rank, or is killing allies a reason to reset the pets rank?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Wouldn't work for pets like Shield, Siphon, and Tachyon Drones that don't have weapons to kill anything with.
Ah I didn't think about that... I must admit my carriers haven't used support craft (I find DPS to be king). So ixnay on that idea, unless they wanted to get into other forms, like dmg dealt or healed, or energy siphoned... Yeah. Best not. Scratch that one.
Well, no problem, it wasn't the largest wall of text I've seen...
I love how people on the Interwebs can't just comment on the content of a message, they have to find a way to insult or otherwise jab at the author. :rolleyes: Of course you could be kidding, but with no emoticons or humor tags, it's hard to tell.
Sure, there was a lot there, but I had a lot to talk about. Personally when I think of "wall of text" I think of those horrible posts with little-to-no punctuation, overtly long paragraphs and/or no line breaks, etc... Whereas my post, while verbose, was well formatted, included visual cues for easy reading, and the layout was such that you could read just the highlighted bits and get the gist. You only "had" to read the details if you wanted to.
And, yes, I'm responding long-windedly to be purposefully obnoxious and poke back jestfully. :P lol
...-Allow Pet Summoning while Pets Exist
-Add a "Self Destruct" button
Instead of these two, we would need a "recycle"-button, that causes the Hangar-Bay to instantly allow a new spawn without resetting the veteran-status of the pets.
We don't necessarily need both of my suggestions, an either/or situation arises (I've noted that above, to make it clear to the next reader. Thanks.). Personally, I'm a fan of the first suggestion. To just keep it as it is now. We can summon new pets, which replenish missing and replace any existing, at any time.
Your idea of a "recycle and keep vet status" button, I think, is unbalanced. Should you keep your pets out they get a vet bonus. Should you summon up new pets you instead get to take advantage of them being at full health and with no abilities on CD. This allows for pros and cons to each action. Balance.
Yes, doffingcomrade pointed out the Fail in this idea, and I agree with you both. It's a bad suggestion as it doesn't take support craft into consideration. Hmmm... Maybe DPS craft gain through kills, Support craft through time? Nah, that's probably too complicated...
Cheers.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Allow Pet Summoning while Pets Exist / Add a "Self Destruct" button.
This should be an option that we can set. When we launch pets, there should be three separate ways that it can happen. Either it simply fills holes, it spawns new pets (current), or it causes the current pets to SD and spawns a new set.
Add a "Hold" option
THIS NEEDS TO BE INSTITUTED!!!
If I want them to dock, it should be MY decision if they do so.
Lessen Vet Build up Time
I Have STFs that don't take 5 minutes to run, let alone missions and grinding dailies.
Have a pet's rank increase according to it's quality:
Common pets start at Rank 0 (Current for all pets)
Uncommon Pets start at Rank 1.
Rare start at Rank 2
Very Rare (Dilithium Pets) Start at Rank 3
Elites (Ultra Rare for Reputation and Fleet) Start at Rank 4
The above ladder of rank makes it so that there is a reason beyond simple DPS to invest in the higher tier pets.
It also allows "Veteran Carrier Captains" to get into the fight quicker and stay longer.
Change Vet to Kill-Based
I agree, but change this to "Completing Assigned Mission". In this way, SRUs are rewarded based on their healing, fighters are based on kills, and Drain Drones are rewarded based on power drain.
All of these above points are well thought out and quite feasible.
Devs, PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THESE FORUMS!!!
Bug reports were ignored or sidelined during previous Tribble Tests, as evidenced by bugs being released that numerous people reported.
LISTEN TO THE FEEDBACK INSTEAD OF PLUGGING YOUR EARS AND PRETENDING THAT THE COMMUNITY ISN'T TALKING!!!!
edit: Editted my formatting to reinforce that THE ABOVE ARE HIS IDEAS with my suggestions.
As an aside, the topic of how the pets accrue veterancy is a good one. It SHOULD be complicated or it should be scrapped completely. If it is left ONLY as a "How long has the pet been summoned", then you WILL run into instances of players sitting on the sidelines "waiting for their pets to grow up."
I'm sorry, but I have been in too many STF PUGs where there are atleast one or two AFK players that do NOTHING. Why give them yet another reason to try and get everyone else to play the game for them?
edit: Further clarified a couple points.
Just got out of a few missions on Tribble, and I have this to say:
The HUD - Very Nicely made. The separate tray for each hangar is a bit much, but it is warranted.
The Controls - I love the ability to see exactly when one of my pets goes down so that I can replace it. However, the delay needs to be returned to its former state. There is no reason to extend the amount of time between individual spawns. THAT IS WHAT THE COOLDOWN ON LAUNCHING THEM IS FOR.
I can't undock any of my ships and we still need a AI attack vector rebuild. All hanger pets that use dual cannons need to be doing strafing runs.
Needed:
1. Passive follow
2. New attack vectors
- Strafing run
- Orbit close
- Orbit far
3. Fix current pet commands.
Jeremy if you are out there we worked on BoP AI a few years back and I think it is time to look at pet AI that focuses on daul cannons. My Qaw'Dun are really sad for the mount of fleet credits/dilithium I spent on them.
I had a play with the new carrier UI and when I put my pets on recall they docked and that was that. They never came back out all repaired and I couldn't launch any new pets while the old ones are docked.
Also it would have been nice to have an attack my target only feature
Other than that it's a huge improvement
Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and testing that has already been performed. Once we get the Recall functionality updated to work according to design, I hope that some of the issues will be addressed.
Here's a quick list of things that are currently under review for further tuning:
1) Eliminating the ability to replace existing pets results in a DPS decrease over time, due to lengthy cooldowns on pet special abilities.
We have many ideas for addressing this, and are weighing our options. Here are a few things I can tell you quickly:
- We plan to keep the "no replace" functionality on pets.
- We did not intend for this to be a blanket DPS nerf to hangar pets (though it does address some pet balance issues that were outstanding)
2) Length of time needed to reach Rank 5 is too high.
'Nuff said, really. We're reviewing the time needed, and doing some internal playtesting in addition to listening to your feedback. No guarantees that this will change, but it is under further review.
3) Ships that use Ramming Speed are actually penalized by this system.
In many ways, this is true. We're reviewing options for potentially improving this functionality.
4) "I don't like my ships to dock when in Recall."
I'm honestly a bit confused by this, as there is literally zero reason to not prefer the new Recall functionality, over a command to just have your pets follow you. I think a lot of these statements are being made because the "auto relaunch" feature is currently bugged, and many of these opinions will change once that bug is fixed.
To clarify, all of the following happens when your pets go into "Docked" mode:
- Their hull regeneration is increased from a value of 0.01 to a value of 1.00.
- They cannot be targeted by anything, even AOE attacks
- They follow you at full speed, and cannot be left behind (other than same-map region transfers, which we're attempting to address)
- When relaunched (functionality that players cannot currently experience due to a bug with our AI commands), they will instantly appear at your side and begin engaging the target - no delay, no having to wait for them to catch up to you. If you have a full pet compliment on recall, it will be as if you just launched two wings from each hangar simultaneously.
Having said that, it's true that you can set your pets to Intercept if you'd prefer for them to just follow you and not Dock. But, this negates their regeneration increase, and prevents them from following you as flawlessly as they do once Docked.
5) This functionality should be extended to non-Hangar pets (such as Saucer Separation, MVAM, etc).
We have no intention of extending these features to non-Hangar pets. These hangar pet upgrades were specifically intended to be an exclusive feature for Carriers (and partial-Carriers), and extending it to these other pets has never been included in the functionality. These other types of pets have never accepted Carrier Commands, and allowing them to do so has never been a consideration in their overall functionality.
If the lack of these features (UI to monitor status, the ability to rank-up, AI commands) means that these non-Hangar pets are intrinsically lacking in some manner, then we may consider improving their functionality in other ways. For example, AI improvements, or giving them new Abilities... that sort of thing.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Having said that, it's true that you can set your pets to Intercept if you'd prefer for them to just follow you and not Dock. But, this negates their regeneration increase, and prevents them from following you as flawlessly as they do once Docked.
Does intercept work with allied ships? because you cant make your pets Dock on an ally
and why is it called "intercept"? That's a hostile act, it should have a passive name like "follow"
Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and testing that has already been performed. Once we get the Recall functionality updated to work according to design, I hope that some of the issues will be addressed.
Here's a quick list of things that are currently under review for further tuning:
1) Eliminating the ability to replace existing pets results in a DPS decrease over time, due to lengthy cooldowns on pet special abilities.
We have many ideas for addressing this, and are weighing our options. Here are a few things I can tell you quickly:
- We plan to keep the "no replace" functionality on pets.
- We did not intend for this to be a blanket DPS nerf to hangar pets (though it does address some pet balance issues that were outstanding)
2) Length of time needed to reach Rank 5 is too high.
'Nuff said, really. We're reviewing the time needed, and doing some internal playtesting in addition to listening to your feedback. No guarantees that this will change, but it is under further review.
3) Ships that use Ramming Speed are actually penalized by this system.
In many ways, this is true. We're reviewing options for potentially improving this functionality.
4) "I don't like my ships to dock when in Recall."
I'm honestly a bit confused by this, as there is literally zero reason to not prefer the new Recall functionality, over a command to just have your pets follow you. I think a lot of these statements are being made because the "auto relaunch" feature is currently bugged, and many of these opinions will change once that bug is fixed.
To clarify, all of the following happens when your pets go into "Docked" mode:
- Their hull regeneration is increased from a value of 0.01 to a value of 1.00.
- They cannot be targeted by anything, even AOE attacks
- They follow you at full speed, and cannot be left behind (other than same-map region transfers, which we're attempting to address)
- When relaunched (functionality that players cannot currently experience due to a bug with our AI commands), they will instantly appear at your side and begin engaging the target - no delay, no having to wait for them to catch up to you. If you have a full pet compliment on recall, it will be as if you just launched two wings from each hangar simultaneously.
Having said that, it's true that you can set your pets to Intercept if you'd prefer for them to just follow you and not Dock. But, this negates their regeneration increase, and prevents them from following you as flawlessly as they do once Docked.
5) This functionality should be extended to non-Hangar pets (such as Saucer Separation, MVAM, etc).
We have no intention of extending these features to non-Hangar pets. These hangar pet upgrades were specifically intended to be an exclusive feature for Carriers (and partial-Carriers), and extending it to these other pets has never been included in the functionality. These other types of pets have never accepted Carrier Commands, and allowing them to do so has never been a consideration in their overall functionality.
If the lack of these features (UI to monitor status, the ability to rank-up, AI commands) means that these non-Hangar pets are intrinsically lacking in some manner, then we may consider improving their functionality in other ways. For example, AI improvements, or giving them new Abilities... that sort of thing.
In answer to the Recall without Docking issue, I give you a scenario that I utilize extensively:
I am attacking a Cube in Cure Space Elite (Cure Found Elite now?). I have my pets as well as my own weapons target the individual probes in succession, dealing with spawns as needed.
Once it is just the Cube, I Recall my pets and book to the next Cube in the rotation. This keeps the pets with me and helps to keep things organized.
Now, as you have stated, the Recall is currently bugged, so the pets are not acting as intended. I will withhold judgement until said bug has been dealt with.
The biggest thing that I would want to see is that the Docking be utilized to "pack up the kids" so that they can be used in the next mission. This might be a bit beyond the capabilities of STO's core system, but it would be a nice addition to actually sit for an extra few moments to collect my pets so that I can have them already "ready to go" on the next encounter.
In answer to the Recall without Docking issue, I give you a scenario that I utilize extensively:
I am attacking a Cube in Cure Space Elite (Cure Found Elite now?). I have my pets as well as my own weapons target the individual probes in succession, dealing with spawns as needed.
Once it is just the Cube, I Recall my pets and book to the next Cube in the rotation. This keeps the pets with me and helps to keep things organized.
Now, as you have stated, the Recall is currently bugged, so the pets are not acting as intended. I will withhold judgement until said bug has been dealt with.
The biggest thing that I would want to see is that the Docking be utilized to "pack up the kids" so that they can be used in the next mission. This might be a bit beyond the capabilities of STO's core system, but it would be a nice addition to actually sit for an extra few moments to collect my pets so that I can have them already "ready to go" on the next encounter.
The scenario you describe is exactly what the new Recall functionality is designed for. If allowed to Dock during that interval between mopping up the probes and moving to the Cube, they will regenerate their HPs and instantly relaunch when you order them to Attack the Cube.
This relaunch is currently bugged, so you'll have to take my word for it until it's functional
As for moving existing pets to subsequent maps, I'm afraid that's beyond our capabilites for now. Your Hangar Pets are technically no more "real" than the Turrets you summon on ground maps - they are temporary effects, created and attached to you by the power system, and such effects cannot easily be transferred between servers. It may be possible, but I honestly can't even conceive of a method to make it happen at this time.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I'm also curious, since recall is currently not functioning properly I can't seem to test this myself... If my carrier pets are docked, and I am destroyed. Does this also reset the pets' veteran status?
I'm also curious, since recall is currently not functioning properly I can't seem to test this myself... If my carrier pets are docked, and I am destroyed. Does this also reset the pets' veteran status?
I believe it is stated in the original post that the destruction of the home carrier will reset ALL pets.
...We have many ideas for addressing this, and are weighing our options. Here are a few things I can tell you quickly:
- We plan to keep the "no replace" functionality on pets....
Thanks for the update/information. What is the plan for times where pets wig-out and stop listening to commands (as happens sometimes), or go off waaaaaaay out of range (and now you'll have to wait for them to travel all the way back to you), or get stuck in the scenery (asteroids, gates, etc.)? It's rare, but these things do happen. It's not at all a problem now, because we just respawn the pets. What will we do under the new system?
Edit: Another reason why I like the "replace" feature is that it can get your ships away from/facing the target again. If I launch BoPs while fighting CE for instance, they'll do an initial cannon/torp run, then spend the rest of their lives circling and pinging with turrets. At least with the ability to relaunch a fresh set I can get them to face the target and using their forward-arc weapons again.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Thanks for the update/information. What is the plan for times where pets wig-out and stop listening to commands (as happens sometimes), or go off waaaaaaay out of range (and now you'll have to wait for them to travel all the way back to you), or get stuck in the scenery (asteroids, gates, etc.)? It's rare, but these things do happen. It's not at all a problem now, because we just respawn the pets. What will we do under the new system?
Oh god, oh god, yes! Vault Ensnared, Azure Nebula Rescue and Kerrat fighters have a habit of flying off to attack the last ship that destroyed them. On KASE for example, we kill the gens for gate 1 and move to gens for gate 2, every time I launch my fighters they will fly back to gate 1, I can set them to recall and then attack again, but they will stay agroed on the gate.
Hi, my name is: Elim Garak, Former Cardassian Oppressor
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
So when a pet goes rogue we'll have to get out of red alert and yank the hangar.
I don't have a better universal workaround for this scenario, at this time. Doing as xelene13 suggests will work, though -- all pets summoned from the Hangar that is unequipped will be dismissed if you unequip it.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Thanks for the update/information. What is the plan for times where pets wig-out and stop listening to commands (as happens sometimes), or go off waaaaaaay out of range (and now you'll have to wait for them to travel all the way back to you), or get stuck in the scenery (asteroids, gates, etc.)? It's rare, but these things do happen. It's not at all a problem now, because we just respawn the pets. What will we do under the new system?
Edit: Another reason why I like the "replace" feature is that it can get your ships away from/facing the target again. If I launch BoPs while fighting CE for instance, they'll do an initial cannon/torp run, then spend the rest of their lives circling and pinging with turrets. At least with the ability to relaunch a fresh set I can get them to face the target and using their forward-arc weapons again.
So when a pet goes rogue we'll have to get out of red alert and yank the hangar.
These are ALL excellent points.
Personally, I really like the idea of "non spam" pets. However, there needs to be some way to "yank the chain" on pets that wander off to do their own thing.
That is unless this "added Warp Breech avoidance" has the side effect of actually making the Pet AI more intelligent as far as pathing and attacking. From what I have witnessed, this is not the case.
I don't have a better universal workaround for this scenario, at this time. Doing as xelene13 suggests will work, though -- all pets summoned from the Hangar that is unequipped will be dismissed if you unequip it.
Perhaps a UI element on the Hangar Bay to dismiss all pets from that hangar? This puts that power into a two minute cooldown, and you respawn the pets as normal?
I don't have a better universal workaround for this scenario, at this time. Doing as xelene13 suggests will work, though -- all pets summoned from the Hangar that is unequipped will be dismissed if you unequip it.
Perhaps a UI element on the Hangar Bay to dismiss all pets from that hangar? This puts that power into a two minute cooldown, and you respawn the pets as normal?
I wouldn't mind a 2min cooldown on such an ability at all.
I wouldn't mind a 2min cooldown on such an ability at all.
It is quite apparent that the Devs want to address the problem of pet spam abuse that has become REALLY bad in some cases.
I just want to throw an idea out that helps both sides. A 2 minute cd on such an emergency measure is enough that it will alleviate a good amount of the pet spam abuse. Having 2 wings of Elite Scorpion Fighters from each Hangar means you have the possibility of 12 HY plasma torps every time you cycle hangars currently. I'm sorry, but that can get to be OP, and I'd rather seem something useful come out of the need to curb abuse of such awesome pets.
With this new carrier system, if everything is done right, perhaps we will see the hangar pets un-nerfed to the stats that they were a long while ago. Drain ships being able to pull all the power from someone is acceptable if those ships gain that ability only after they have been used a bit and have attained a rank or two.
I don't have a better universal workaround for this scenario, at this time. Doing as xelene13 suggests will work, though -- all pets summoned from the Hangar that is unequipped will be dismissed if you unequip it.
...Perhaps a UI element on the Hangar Bay to dismiss all pets from that hangar? This puts that power into a two minute cooldown, and you respawn the pets as normal?
Not a bad idea so long as it's still affected by the CD-reducing DOffs, high Aux, etc.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Haven't read all of this thread, but as a Vesta pilot, I have to agree with the bad side of the launch timer changes - it's quite common to see my runabouts spawn on top of eachother, having to deal with the game occluding them upwards before they'll start flying around. It ends up being a lot slower and less efficient.
I always took the Vesta's slower launch speed as a mild balancing point to its greatly increased re-launch speed for high aux. I'd be perfectly happy for this to be reverted if it stops my pets clipping into eachother and messing with their launching.
Otherwise, I like the improvements overall, although the Warp Core Breach avoidance needs work - I submitted a bug report about this, the pets will *not* move to avoid a breach if I'm not moving, the AI thinks obeying my (lack of) movement is more important than their survival.
You're looking for solutions to symptoms of a larger issue. While maybe bandaids like a Dismiss Ripcord would be workable, they don't address the cause. That cause being inconsistent or faulty AI.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and testing that has already been performed. Once we get the Recall functionality updated to work according to design, I hope that some of the issues will be addressed.
Here's a quick list of things that are currently under review for further tuning:
1) Eliminating the ability to replace existing pets results in a DPS decrease over time, due to lengthy cooldowns on pet special abilities.
We have many ideas for addressing this, and are weighing our options. Here are a few things I can tell you quickly:
- We plan to keep the "no replace" functionality on pets.
- We did not intend for this to be a blanket DPS nerf to hangar pets (though it does address some pet balance issues that were outstanding)
2) Length of time needed to reach Rank 5 is too high.
'Nuff said, really. We're reviewing the time needed, and doing some internal playtesting in addition to listening to your feedback. No guarantees that this will change, but it is under further review.
3) Ships that use Ramming Speed are actually penalized by this system.
In many ways, this is true. We're reviewing options for potentially improving this functionality.
4) "I don't like my ships to dock when in Recall."
I'm honestly a bit confused by this, as there is literally zero reason to not prefer the new Recall functionality, over a command to just have your pets follow you. I think a lot of these statements are being made because the "auto relaunch" feature is currently bugged, and many of these opinions will change once that bug is fixed.
To clarify, all of the following happens when your pets go into "Docked" mode:
- Their hull regeneration is increased from a value of 0.01 to a value of 1.00.
- They cannot be targeted by anything, even AOE attacks
- They follow you at full speed, and cannot be left behind (other than same-map region transfers, which we're attempting to address)
- When relaunched (functionality that players cannot currently experience due to a bug with our AI commands), they will instantly appear at your side and begin engaging the target - no delay, no having to wait for them to catch up to you. If you have a full pet compliment on recall, it will be as if you just launched two wings from each hangar simultaneously.
Having said that, it's true that you can set your pets to Intercept if you'd prefer for them to just follow you and not Dock. But, this negates their regeneration increase, and prevents them from following you as flawlessly as they do once Docked.
5) This functionality should be extended to non-Hangar pets (such as Saucer Separation, MVAM, etc).
We have no intention of extending these features to non-Hangar pets. These hangar pet upgrades were specifically intended to be an exclusive feature for Carriers (and partial-Carriers), and extending it to these other pets has never been included in the functionality. These other types of pets have never accepted Carrier Commands, and allowing them to do so has never been a consideration in their overall functionality.
If the lack of these features (UI to monitor status, the ability to rank-up, AI commands) means that these non-Hangar pets are intrinsically lacking in some manner, then we may consider improving their functionality in other ways. For example, AI improvements, or giving them new Abilities... that sort of thing.
Thank you for replying to the thread.
Is the 1.0 healing stand for 1.0 percent per second?
Can you target them with healing powers like enigeering team when they're dock?
Also the one concern left when it comes to old recall vs. Docking is that when you recalled BoPs and I'm guessing Elite Stalkers is that they'd automatically cloak. When docking is fixed will BoPs and Elite Stalkers automatic cloak when released from docking?
Also when you click on a fighter and hit the i icon and a screen pops up with hull points and location of fighter is it possible to add more info like turn rate basic expected dps, and so on?
You're looking for solutions to symptoms of a larger issue. While maybe bandaids like a Dismiss Ripcord would be workable, they don't address the cause. That cause being inconsistent or faulty AI.
So part of the fix is to fix the pet AI in general? Cool.
FINALLY!!! Someone sees past the symptoms and realizes that the bug has deep roots.
The pet AI, if fixed, would allow for the pets to act intelligently when attacking AND maneuvering. That means utilizing cannons to their full potential as well as avoiding getting stuck and blown up by random warp core breeches.
Thank you, good sir, for the feedback on this new carrier interface.
As for the pet ability cooldowns, improving their AI would improve their usage of abilities, meaning that there would be little need to "spam cycle" pets.
Comments
This happend to me as well on the Vesta with the Advance Danube pets.
Division Hispana
www.divisionhispana.com
We seem to have lost the cloaking special ability. When you put them in recall they come to the ship and dock. They used to cloak and hang around which made them more accessible. Maybe if docking and undocking worked correctly this would be less of an issue, but right now they dock and they are gone (I know its a bug). Also, as other people pointed out, the AI seems to ignore the defend/attack mode rules and will go off attacking targets on the other side of the map. Recall was good at preventing that, but doesnt really work now.
This also raises the point (as was raised by others already) that we dont really have an alternative to the old recall/standby functionality. It was useful to have them at your disposal.
Something else down this path of thought: pets in space are really companions in the same way that BOFFs and pets/summons on the ground are companions. It would be a good time to normalize some of their behaviors. Generally speaking, the ground companion behavior is more manageable and I would replicate that into space, but there is some room for additional improvement here. This is what I would like to see as common behaviors
1) Attack the selected target and return to rally point when finished (this is limited to targets in range of the captain)
2) Aggressively defend the rally point
3) Follow the target passively (selected ally or myself as default)
4) Dock (not useful for current ground pets but maybe useful later)
Another thing here is it would be useful to be able to set a rally point in space. Then I could telll my pets to defend an area, as in C&H, instead of forcing an ally to sit there and have the pets defend him. Hard to do this in space, but maybe add a "drop rallypoint marker" button that lets me mark my current location, then I have the ships defend it and I can move on to my next objective
All that said and done, at the very least carrier pets need to be skilled up in their abilities. Increasing the DPS boost from veterancy by a factor of two would not be a bad idea as well - after all, this complaint stems from the fact that many pets don't actually do all that much damage with their weapons and need their abilities to be useful. If abilities didn't need to be spammed as much due to increased weapon damage then it's all good, though that in turn reduces the pressure to get higher valued pets. I'd definitely remove the 4% DPS hit as it is not necessary when considered alongside the DPS hit from lack of ability refresh.
Do pets fly at balanced energy levels? I feel like that may be the case and why their energy weapons are so unimpressive when their AI does finally turn to face the target. Perhaps pets should change their power levels based on their class and their mission? Speed mode for recall, Shield mode for escort, Weapon mode for intercept/attack mode? Unarmed pets or pets with highly Aux-dependent skills would want to either run in an aux-heavy mode or be able to switch to that before using their abilities.
Gaining full veterancy in 3 or even 2 minutes would be extremely good - or having advanced pets spawn at rank 1 and elite pets spawn at rank 2. As other have noted five minutes is an eternity in a STF.
Shields could be based on healing, Tachs on shield drain damage, Siphons on drained power or just time on target like it is now
Well, no problem, it wasn't the largest wall of text I've seen.
Why don't you try to keep it simple? Here's another suggestion:
-Allow Pet Summoning while Pets Exist
-Add a "Self Destruct" button
Instead of these two, we would need a "recycle"-button, that causes the Hangar-Bay to instantly allow a new spawn without resetting the veteran-status of the pets. Maybe a Beam-to-Hangarbay animation... This would also replace the need of the new recall-function, so the old one could stay.
-Change Vet to Kill-Based
Kills, contribution to kills... That sounds like "damage-dealt" by this pet. How should that work for Siphon-Drones or something like that?
If we think about an STF and a Danube holds a Sphere with its Tractor-Beam in place, so that a Fer'Jai can use it's famous Tricobalt mines on the Sphere, how do we sort that out? And if the Tricobalt-Mine also kills the Danube, does it then also gain a new rank, or is killing allies a reason to reset the pets rank?
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
I love how people on the Interwebs can't just comment on the content of a message, they have to find a way to insult or otherwise jab at the author. :rolleyes: Of course you could be kidding, but with no emoticons or humor tags, it's hard to tell.
Sure, there was a lot there, but I had a lot to talk about. Personally when I think of "wall of text" I think of those horrible posts with little-to-no punctuation, overtly long paragraphs and/or no line breaks, etc... Whereas my post, while verbose, was well formatted, included visual cues for easy reading, and the layout was such that you could read just the highlighted bits and get the gist. You only "had" to read the details if you wanted to.
And, yes, I'm responding long-windedly to be purposefully obnoxious and poke back jestfully. :P lol
We don't necessarily need both of my suggestions, an either/or situation arises (I've noted that above, to make it clear to the next reader. Thanks.). Personally, I'm a fan of the first suggestion. To just keep it as it is now. We can summon new pets, which replenish missing and replace any existing, at any time.
Your idea of a "recycle and keep vet status" button, I think, is unbalanced. Should you keep your pets out they get a vet bonus. Should you summon up new pets you instead get to take advantage of them being at full health and with no abilities on CD. This allows for pros and cons to each action. Balance.
Yes, doffingcomrade pointed out the Fail in this idea, and I agree with you both. It's a bad suggestion as it doesn't take support craft into consideration. Hmmm... Maybe DPS craft gain through kills, Support craft through time? Nah, that's probably too complicated...
Cheers.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Allow Pet Summoning while Pets Exist / Add a "Self Destruct" button.
This should be an option that we can set. When we launch pets, there should be three separate ways that it can happen. Either it simply fills holes, it spawns new pets (current), or it causes the current pets to SD and spawns a new set.
Add a "Hold" option
THIS NEEDS TO BE INSTITUTED!!!
If I want them to dock, it should be MY decision if they do so.
Lessen Vet Build up Time
I Have STFs that don't take 5 minutes to run, let alone missions and grinding dailies.
Have a pet's rank increase according to it's quality:
Common pets start at Rank 0 (Current for all pets)
Uncommon Pets start at Rank 1.
Rare start at Rank 2
Very Rare (Dilithium Pets) Start at Rank 3
Elites (Ultra Rare for Reputation and Fleet) Start at Rank 4
The above ladder of rank makes it so that there is a reason beyond simple DPS to invest in the higher tier pets.
It also allows "Veteran Carrier Captains" to get into the fight quicker and stay longer.
Change Vet to Kill-Based
I agree, but change this to "Completing Assigned Mission". In this way, SRUs are rewarded based on their healing, fighters are based on kills, and Drain Drones are rewarded based on power drain.
All of these above points are well thought out and quite feasible.
Devs, PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THESE FORUMS!!!
Bug reports were ignored or sidelined during previous Tribble Tests, as evidenced by bugs being released that numerous people reported.
LISTEN TO THE FEEDBACK INSTEAD OF PLUGGING YOUR EARS AND PRETENDING THAT THE COMMUNITY ISN'T TALKING!!!!
edit: Editted my formatting to reinforce that THE ABOVE ARE HIS IDEAS with my suggestions.
As an aside, the topic of how the pets accrue veterancy is a good one. It SHOULD be complicated or it should be scrapped completely. If it is left ONLY as a "How long has the pet been summoned", then you WILL run into instances of players sitting on the sidelines "waiting for their pets to grow up."
I'm sorry, but I have been in too many STF PUGs where there are atleast one or two AFK players that do NOTHING. Why give them yet another reason to try and get everyone else to play the game for them?
edit: Further clarified a couple points.
Just got out of a few missions on Tribble, and I have this to say:
The HUD - Very Nicely made. The separate tray for each hangar is a bit much, but it is warranted.
The Controls - I love the ability to see exactly when one of my pets goes down so that I can replace it. However, the delay needs to be returned to its former state. There is no reason to extend the amount of time between individual spawns. THAT IS WHAT THE COOLDOWN ON LAUNCHING THEM IS FOR.
Needed:
1. Passive follow
2. New attack vectors
- Strafing run
- Orbit close
- Orbit far
3. Fix current pet commands.
Jeremy if you are out there we worked on BoP AI a few years back and I think it is time to look at pet AI that focuses on daul cannons. My Qaw'Dun are really sad for the mount of fleet credits/dilithium I spent on them.
Also it would have been nice to have an attack my target only feature
Other than that it's a huge improvement
Here's a quick list of things that are currently under review for further tuning:
1) Eliminating the ability to replace existing pets results in a DPS decrease over time, due to lengthy cooldowns on pet special abilities.
We have many ideas for addressing this, and are weighing our options. Here are a few things I can tell you quickly:
- We plan to keep the "no replace" functionality on pets.
- We did not intend for this to be a blanket DPS nerf to hangar pets (though it does address some pet balance issues that were outstanding)
2) Length of time needed to reach Rank 5 is too high.
'Nuff said, really. We're reviewing the time needed, and doing some internal playtesting in addition to listening to your feedback. No guarantees that this will change, but it is under further review.
3) Ships that use Ramming Speed are actually penalized by this system.
In many ways, this is true. We're reviewing options for potentially improving this functionality.
4) "I don't like my ships to dock when in Recall."
I'm honestly a bit confused by this, as there is literally zero reason to not prefer the new Recall functionality, over a command to just have your pets follow you. I think a lot of these statements are being made because the "auto relaunch" feature is currently bugged, and many of these opinions will change once that bug is fixed.
To clarify, all of the following happens when your pets go into "Docked" mode:
- Their hull regeneration is increased from a value of 0.01 to a value of 1.00.
- They cannot be targeted by anything, even AOE attacks
- They follow you at full speed, and cannot be left behind (other than same-map region transfers, which we're attempting to address)
- When relaunched (functionality that players cannot currently experience due to a bug with our AI commands), they will instantly appear at your side and begin engaging the target - no delay, no having to wait for them to catch up to you. If you have a full pet compliment on recall, it will be as if you just launched two wings from each hangar simultaneously.
Having said that, it's true that you can set your pets to Intercept if you'd prefer for them to just follow you and not Dock. But, this negates their regeneration increase, and prevents them from following you as flawlessly as they do once Docked.
5) This functionality should be extended to non-Hangar pets (such as Saucer Separation, MVAM, etc).
We have no intention of extending these features to non-Hangar pets. These hangar pet upgrades were specifically intended to be an exclusive feature for Carriers (and partial-Carriers), and extending it to these other pets has never been included in the functionality. These other types of pets have never accepted Carrier Commands, and allowing them to do so has never been a consideration in their overall functionality.
If the lack of these features (UI to monitor status, the ability to rank-up, AI commands) means that these non-Hangar pets are intrinsically lacking in some manner, then we may consider improving their functionality in other ways. For example, AI improvements, or giving them new Abilities... that sort of thing.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
and why is it called "intercept"? That's a hostile act, it should have a passive name like "follow"
While in intercept mode, fighters attempt to intercept any incoming torpedoes or other targetable projectiles.
In answer to the Recall without Docking issue, I give you a scenario that I utilize extensively:
I am attacking a Cube in Cure Space Elite (Cure Found Elite now?). I have my pets as well as my own weapons target the individual probes in succession, dealing with spawns as needed.
Once it is just the Cube, I Recall my pets and book to the next Cube in the rotation. This keeps the pets with me and helps to keep things organized.
Now, as you have stated, the Recall is currently bugged, so the pets are not acting as intended. I will withhold judgement until said bug has been dealt with.
The biggest thing that I would want to see is that the Docking be utilized to "pack up the kids" so that they can be used in the next mission. This might be a bit beyond the capabilities of STO's core system, but it would be a nice addition to actually sit for an extra few moments to collect my pets so that I can have them already "ready to go" on the next encounter.
The scenario you describe is exactly what the new Recall functionality is designed for. If allowed to Dock during that interval between mopping up the probes and moving to the Cube, they will regenerate their HPs and instantly relaunch when you order them to Attack the Cube.
This relaunch is currently bugged, so you'll have to take my word for it until it's functional
As for moving existing pets to subsequent maps, I'm afraid that's beyond our capabilites for now. Your Hangar Pets are technically no more "real" than the Turrets you summon on ground maps - they are temporary effects, created and attached to you by the power system, and such effects cannot easily be transferred between servers. It may be possible, but I honestly can't even conceive of a method to make it happen at this time.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I believe it is stated in the original post that the destruction of the home carrier will reset ALL pets.
Edit: Another reason why I like the "replace" feature is that it can get your ships away from/facing the target again. If I launch BoPs while fighting CE for instance, they'll do an initial cannon/torp run, then spend the rest of their lives circling and pinging with turrets. At least with the ability to relaunch a fresh set I can get them to face the target and using their forward-arc weapons again.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
So when a pet goes rogue we'll have to get out of red alert and yank the hangar.
Oh god, oh god, yes! Vault Ensnared, Azure Nebula Rescue and Kerrat fighters have a habit of flying off to attack the last ship that destroyed them. On KASE for example, we kill the gens for gate 1 and move to gens for gate 2, every time I launch my fighters they will fly back to gate 1, I can set them to recall and then attack again, but they will stay agroed on the gate.
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
I don't have a better universal workaround for this scenario, at this time. Doing as xelene13 suggests will work, though -- all pets summoned from the Hangar that is unequipped will be dismissed if you unequip it.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
These are ALL excellent points.
Personally, I really like the idea of "non spam" pets. However, there needs to be some way to "yank the chain" on pets that wander off to do their own thing.
That is unless this "added Warp Breech avoidance" has the side effect of actually making the Pet AI more intelligent as far as pathing and attacking. From what I have witnessed, this is not the case.
edit:
Perhaps a UI element on the Hangar Bay to dismiss all pets from that hangar? This puts that power into a two minute cooldown, and you respawn the pets as normal?
Communication is so refreshing, thank you.
I wouldn't mind a 2min cooldown on such an ability at all.
It is quite apparent that the Devs want to address the problem of pet spam abuse that has become REALLY bad in some cases.
I just want to throw an idea out that helps both sides. A 2 minute cd on such an emergency measure is enough that it will alleviate a good amount of the pet spam abuse. Having 2 wings of Elite Scorpion Fighters from each Hangar means you have the possibility of 12 HY plasma torps every time you cycle hangars currently. I'm sorry, but that can get to be OP, and I'd rather seem something useful come out of the need to curb abuse of such awesome pets.
With this new carrier system, if everything is done right, perhaps we will see the hangar pets un-nerfed to the stats that they were a long while ago. Drain ships being able to pull all the power from someone is acceptable if those ships gain that ability only after they have been used a bit and have attained a rank or two.
Not a bad idea so long as it's still affected by the CD-reducing DOffs, high Aux, etc.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I always took the Vesta's slower launch speed as a mild balancing point to its greatly increased re-launch speed for high aux. I'd be perfectly happy for this to be reverted if it stops my pets clipping into eachother and messing with their launching.
Otherwise, I like the improvements overall, although the Warp Core Breach avoidance needs work - I submitted a bug report about this, the pets will *not* move to avoid a breach if I'm not moving, the AI thinks obeying my (lack of) movement is more important than their survival.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Thank you for replying to the thread.
Is the 1.0 healing stand for 1.0 percent per second?
Can you target them with healing powers like enigeering team when they're dock?
Also the one concern left when it comes to old recall vs. Docking is that when you recalled BoPs and I'm guessing Elite Stalkers is that they'd automatically cloak. When docking is fixed will BoPs and Elite Stalkers automatic cloak when released from docking?
Also when you click on a fighter and hit the i icon and a screen pops up with hull points and location of fighter is it possible to add more info like turn rate basic expected dps, and so on?
Thank you again for responding to the thread.
FINALLY!!! Someone sees past the symptoms and realizes that the bug has deep roots.
The pet AI, if fixed, would allow for the pets to act intelligently when attacking AND maneuvering. That means utilizing cannons to their full potential as well as avoiding getting stuck and blown up by random warp core breeches.
Thank you, good sir, for the feedback on this new carrier interface.
As for the pet ability cooldowns, improving their AI would improve their usage of abilities, meaning that there would be little need to "spam cycle" pets.
Now we just need to get that AI fixed....