Targ handling kit / ground combat pets in general

angrytarg

I said it time and again: I want a Targ handling kit!

NPCs are already able to handle Targs, why aren't our characters able to use those? I feel there is a lot of potential with those kind of kits. For example:

Tactical Kit - Attack Targ handling Kit

Attack Targs are assault pets. They are medium sized, moderately quick Targs able to charge (lunge) at an enemy and pin them down (similiar to Voth saurs in the battlezone).

Engineering Kit - Guard Targ handling Kit

Guard Targs are defensive pets. They are fairly large, slow Targs which may feature additional armour. In combat, they'll taunt the enemy (generate aggro) and bind them in close combat while making occasional use of a frenzy ability causing AoE knockdown. They are inspired by terran "Sauhunde" (sow dogs) which were used in medieval German game on wild boars (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Die_Waffen_der_Wartburg_319_Tafel_55_.png) - their purpose was to pin down the boar so the hunter could kill it without endangering himself.

Science Kit - Seeker Targ handling Kit

Seeker Targ are support pets. They are the smallest breed used in the field albeit the fastest and most agile ones. They specialize in tracking their victims (stealth detection), flanking manneuvers and intimidate them with aggressive squeals (debuff)

The appearance of those pets could even vary according to your toon. A Gorn for example could use Saurs instead of Targs.

I would prefer this to be a KDF exclusive kit. But if total balanced must be achieved, Feds could use drones with similiar functionality. But knowing Cryptic doesn't give a hoot about anything Star Trek, Starfleet will probably send Mugatos or Sehlat's to their deaths

mightybobcnc

p.p.s.: Saur kit for Gorn.

rexyf

I'd love that. At the very least, I'd like to have a greater variety of combat pets. I'd kill to trade my Jackal Mastiff for a Warrigul.

revandarklighter

I believe ground should be much more like space in general (as suggested before, switching active away officer on ground like ships in space would be kind of... The natural step in this game)

Like that I'd really like to see some kind of "ground carrier", meaning kits or abilities to regularry spawn ground pets of our choice in different qualities ect...

May be something like that comes with the ground revamp...

bitemepwe

mightybobcnc wrote: »

p.p.s.: Saur kit for Gorn.

gorndogs.


I agree and have said it many times before, we need ground pet handling kits for all the factions.

Monster Targ, Targ and Jackal Mastiff for the KDF.

Saurs for the Gorn and whatever for the Romulans.

killdozer9211

I'm down with ground pets, but if they're gonna be made into pure kits, I think they should be for a certain career.

I'm still a firm believer that science would benefit heavily from pet gameplay in terms of supplimental dps and threat displacement, just as it was intended when carriers were originally science-rooted ships. Plus, science characters could best support their pets with heals and whatnot.

The second most likely would be engineering, on the basis that, on ground anyway, they already have been made into the spawner/pet manager class.

Tac doesn't need pets. They can have device pets if they want them.

bitemepwe

I disagree. I feel that the Pet kits should be universal. Science already has the best set up for CC and debuffs, Engineers already have pets and Tacs are a one trick pony.

majesticmsfc

I'd love to see these faction unique handling kits. Drones for the Federation would work, as would Targs for the KDF and something native on New Romulus for the Romulans.

I'd also like to see the ability for us to craft unique kits. Allow us to add what we want to a kit. I also think like the new science destroyers have dual deflectors, a dual kit set-up for ground would be cool, even if one slot is restricted to such kits that are career specific and the other for universal ones like a Targ kit.

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killdozer9211

bitemepwe wrote: »

I disagree. I feel that the Pet kits should be universal. Science already has the best set up for CC and debuffs, Engineers already have pets and Tacs are a one trick pony.

Anybody who really needs pets can slot device pets. Any pet kit that fields and supports them is much more along the lines of a combat biologist or medic than anything else, ie, science.

angrytarg

skollulfr wrote: »

... and everyone gets the ability to spam uninterruptible, uncounterable, knockbacks and pins that exacerbate the clunkiness of the games clunky unresponsive animation lock.

i like the idea... but its an idea for a game that has the core game-play mechanics down.
this games controls and animation locks are so bad that you may end up stuck for 3+ seconds while stupit activation sequence x runs its course to activate a dodge that A takes .7 seconds to activate, but isnt even guarenteed to work because the instruction was just dropped.

and thats before you get to anime ninja lunge bull**** that sees the attacker change direction 90degrees in midair because the dice said hit the moment the attack activated.

not to mention being debuffed by a squealing pig is daft and talk of "aggro" means you are pulling this right out of your average single player rpg, rather than dealing with an mmo.

Who says they have to be uncounter-able? Resistance/immunity to knockback and slow and stun effects already are in game, I don't know why it should be any different in this case.

I agree that there are some flaws with the aniations, though "pets" are, as well, already in-game. NPCs use these and some of them have gimmicks as well.

Don't you dare diss the shatner-lunge! :P I know what you are going for, it's annoying but this is, still, a turn based combat system and not a shooter or arcade game. I don't doubt that it could be better, but STO IS a relic. I think we have to deal with what we have.

Wh should targ debuffing be daft? Ever faced a raging wild boar, let alone an alien breed with spikes and a bad attitude? And I don't get what your problem is with "aggro". Call it threat or whatever. STO uses this mechanic already, as well as basically every MMO in existence. The idea is that your pet takes the flak so you are free to perform ranged attacks. That's the basic principle of combat pets int he first place.

red01999

killdozer9211 wrote: »

Anybody who really needs pets can slot device pets. Any pet kit that fields and supports them is much more along the lines of a combat biologist or medic than anything else, ie, science.

Unfortunately the combat pets are bugged. I've noted this a few times in this forum. It's been that way since LoR, but so far, no fix.

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angrytarg

skollulfr wrote: »

yea, i can roundhouse a 12 foot rex onto its TRIBBLE, but getting pounced by a raptor gives me no choice but to watch a hold bar. since even if i punch the thing after the tell it doesnt interupt.
and thats predicated on actually being able to respond due to animation locks.

Can't really argue with that. I get your point, though it was never an issue to me. There has to be a mechanic which determines wether the attack succeeds or not since STO isn't a real-time combat game, it just creates the illusion of one. In another game you might be able to counter the pounce with an attack, interrupting it. In STO, as far as I understand it, the moment an attack is triggered the dice are rolled. If pounce > defence, then "hold".

they arent being directed by a player to maximise the effect of the knokcback/down & pin mechanics.
players will, have and do exploit every bug they can find to cruch on & claim "skill".
unfortunatly, this would be no different.

Is it possible to keep someone in a stun-lock? I thought that after being knocked down you'll gain an immunity to further attacks of that kind. Also, pretty much all characters are immune to knockbacks anyway due to some traits or items. But that shouldn't be an excuse, I get what you're saying. But I figure pets wth abilities would have cooldowns on those, making it impossible to constantly "spam" those.

i dont find angry animals particularly threatening until their getting close to my own body mass. and if i had a gun, i really wouldn't care at all.

I'm pretty sure the average boar will outclass you easily (although it depends on where you live) Though that's not the point, really. If Targs are anything like our boars adult specimens should reach dimensions around 150-200cm length and 180-300kg weight. Good arguments for an intimidation skill.

i dont care what you try to call aggro. it is an exclusively single player game mechanic. or are you goint to subvert player agency by forcing them to shoot a target with a fudgy number somewhere rather than the one their selecting?

i dont care if aggro is included in every rpg, that doesnt change that its a waste of time and space single player mechanic haphazardly slapped into mmo games as part of that stupid trinity.

I'm not a PvP afficionado so I'm talking about PvE most of the time. Of course a player is able to choose his target. In other MMOs, pets are usually ignored or a nuisance while players fight. I don't see where the difference in STO would be.

would a like to be able to sand a wave of fighting dogs/pigs/lizards/birds after targets?
sure!
would it work in sto with the underlying foundations and other problems?
unfortunately, no.
it would just end up as spammed exploits.

I guess we'd have to test the mechanic in-game. Cooldowns, immunites etc. would limit spamming of those pets. If you talk about massive encounters that suffer under massive pet spam like space battles do currently one could limit the number of pets allowed in a team. For example, three pets for a single player or three shared pets for a full team. I mean I imagine right now everyone's spamming lunge/grenades/sentries/debuffs as well, making a PvP ground arena a cluster**** of effects that slows down anything as well.

red01999

majesticmsfc wrote: »

I'd love to see these faction unique handling kits. Drones for the Federation would work, as would Targs for the KDF and something native on New Romulus for the Romulans.

I'd also like to see the ability for us to craft unique kits. Allow us to add what we want to a kit. I also think like the new science destroyers have dual deflectors, a dual kit set-up for ground would be cool, even if one slot is restricted to such kits that are career specific and the other for universal ones like a Targ kit.

* A drone for everyone in all the pet handler kits.
* Holo-beast for Feds of some kind (Sehlat?). That way they can just be uploaded back to the portable computer on the officer or something.
* Targs for the KDF, because everyone loves a cute little targ until it's devouring your face. Might also be nice to toss in something else, e.g. perhaps two Targ-spawning abilities and something from the Gorn or Naussican homeworld of adequate terribleness.
* I'm inclined to give the Romulans some of those beasts in the crater on New Romulus that you have to observe - and sometimes kill. Or Epohhs. I'm fairly certain they're just waiting for the right time to rise up and destroy the whole lot of us.

In terms of crafting unique kits, there's another thread here (Ground Kit Revamp Feedback) that discusses some good (and some bad) ideas that are apparently going into a ground kit revamp slated for season 9. You might want to chime in on that, since at least one of the ideas (reusable devices replacing a kit power) is something almost nobody wants.

majortiraomega

angrytarg wrote: »

Who says they have to be uncounter-able? Resistance/immunity to knockback and slow and stun effects already are in game, I don't know why it should be any different in this case.

The problem is knockback resistance just decreases the chance of the knockback. The duration is always the same when a knockback takes place. There are very few knockback immunity abilities and all knockback immunity abilities may only be used after the knockback has expired. Chaining disables is still a real problem on the ground.

angrytarg

majortiraomega wrote: »

The problem is knockback resistance just decreases the chance of the knockback. The duration is always the same when a knockback takes place. There are very few knockback immunity abilities and all knockback immunity abilities may only be used after the knockback has expired. Chaining disables is still a real problem on the ground.

Correct, I have to admit that's a viable point. Because I just recently started a new all tellarite toon and crew and noticed that the tellarites ground trait, being immune to knockback, is a active ability that's *DISABLED* when a hold or knockback occurs. That's great game design