Animal Helpers - More Than Just Mounts Or Battle Buddies

We know that we will be able to have pets as battle companions with all classes and of course we have a pack mule. However, what about other things?

I play Runescape and love/hate (since it's due second only to Construction for a rework/overhaul) the Summoning skill. Although there are few very useful ones I enjoy having summons that help augment stuff that's outside of combat that's not just being a pack mule. In Ashes of Creation it wouldn't do to have that kind of thing only for the Summoner archetype and so I looked it up and couldn't really find anything.

I would have thought information on utility pets would be found with the Animal Husbandry skill but I haven't found anything. Of course if there is information that I'm missing I would be happy to be pointed in the right direction.

Maybe it's just not something that's been thought of and won't be seen on initial release. If so I would be kind of sad as I plan to focus on Animal Husbandry for my Freehold.

A simple example to illustrate a utility pet would probably be in the gathering skills. Let's take Herbalism. Your basic pet would be able to help you scout out and locate herbs. The highest quality pet for Herbalism would gather those herbs into your pack mule so you can focus on defending the location. Something like that.

I know there's been mention of some resources where you can establish an auto-gatherer linked to the Freehold system or something. (Probably mainly for common to uncommon stuff that you need a lot of by endgame for both creation and maintenance.) Not all auto-gatherers need be mechanical or magical. Perhaps some would be better with animals.

Would love to know other peoples thoughts on it.

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Kionashi

Im not a fan of things that makes bots easier to program

but we already have the concept of utility pets... the Quarrior is a pet that gathers gems for you in your freehold

but honestly Im against passive resource generation

Ravudha

Vizard Lizard Wizard wrote: »

Your basic pet would be able to help you scout out and locate herbs. The highest quality pet for Herbalism would gather those herbs into your pack mule so you can focus on defending the location. Something like that.

I'm not a fan of going in this direction tbh because it makes pets look like an upgrade or necessity for gathering. I don't like having pets or using pets in MMOs and would rather they stay as a horizontal progression option.

So maybe instead of an upgrade it could be a trade off like with combat pets: e.g. while the gathering pet is out your character's own gathering radar/mini map is reduced somehow.

But one problem I'm not sure can be avoided is what @Kionashi said - the pet is passively doing the work that I feel the player should be actively doing..scouting for resources.

BlackBrony

I might be wrong, but I remember Steven saying that resources wouldn't have like a huge thing on top of them telling me THIS IS SOMETHING TO GATHER, but I can't find where, maybe it has changed.

I don't like passive things. If resources are important I should put my attention into gathering them.

Ravudha

BlackBrony wrote: »

I might be wrong, but I remember Steven saying that resources wouldn't have like a huge thing on top of them telling me THIS IS SOMETHING TO GATHER, but I can't find where, maybe it has changed.

I don't like passive things. If resources are important I should put my attention into gathering them.

That was in a much earlier stream, and later on they tested out having sparkles on top of gatherables. So looks like they're testing what actually works best for the player experience.

Puck_Goodfellow

Kionashi wrote: »

Im not a fan of things that makes bots easier to program

but we already have the concept of utility pets... the Quarrior is a pet that gathers gems for you in your freehold

but honestly Im against passive resource generation

Okay. At least I now know that there is something. While passive resource generation isn't appealing to you at least there can only be one freehold per account.

I think the main reason people don't like this is what the other guy said about bots. However, Steve has addressed this multiple times that they are confidant in the anti-botting system they are developing.

As an aside, I would like them to have a contest in beta where people can try to sneak past the anti-botting system to stress test it.

I doubt it will turn into AOC the RTSMMO and all the pitfalls that come with that or even Farmville the MMO because that's what you make utility pets sound like, or at least the auto-gathering. I wouldn't mind an MMO example though so I understand what pitfalls you're looking for myself.

When it comes to auto-gatherables they could make it that the stuff generated isn't something you could trade without crafting the end product but that doesn't really address bots.

But I digress and so did everyone else. The main thing I was talking about was active and/or passive utility pets which have to be with the player to be useful or used. It seems merely mentioning auto-gather once in one paragraph turned this into a thread about bots for the most part.

Ravudha wrote: »

Vizard Lizard Wizard wrote: »

Your basic pet would be able to help you scout out and locate herbs. The highest quality pet for Herbalism would gather those herbs into your pack mule so you can focus on defending the location. Something like that.

I'm not a fan of going in this direction tbh because it makes pets look like an upgrade or necessity for gathering. I don't like having pets or using pets in MMOs and would rather they stay as a horizontal progression option.

...

But one problem I'm not sure can be avoided is what @Kionashi said - the pet is passively doing the work that I feel the player should be actively doing..scouting for resources.

There are upgrades for everything in this MMO that are necessary to be the best at what you want.

Want to be the best bandit group? You'll need the best gear and the best strategies.

Want to be the best merchant group? You'll need the best caravans with the best mounts and the best bodyguards to counter the bandits.

You could be the best real estate agent (cause housing is sellable) or the best etc...

Is it terrible that you need the best mounts to be the best merchant guild? I hardly think so.

I'm merely proposing a progression for those that want to master gathering.

As for your last point on passively doing what you think the player should be actively doing when it comes to gatherables. Keep in mind that only certain gatherables could be done this way anyway. I doubt there's a magic generator that creates bear asses needed for the upkeep of your outfit you created with bear-asses.

And we're getting both farms and herb gardens. Isn't that passive? Is that auto-gathering? Come on.

As I said before, I'm sure the main point of the auto-gather stuff is mainly for the upkeep for what you've crafted because you need actual MATERIAL and not just gold to maintain your equipment.

We've yet to see the details of how it works but we do know it will correspond to what was used to make it. Legendary equipment needs legendary material for repair, epic needs epic and so on. I highly doubt you can "auto-gather" legendary material.

Ravudha

Vizard Lizard Wizard wrote: »

I'm merely proposing a progression for those that want to master gathering.

Sure, but I prefer to have a progression with tools rather than pets.

If gathering required the use of a pet, it's a bit of a paradigm shift going from pets being optional in MMOs to becoming a necessity. I just really don't like having pets from an RPG perspective, so being forced to use one is a big no no in my book.

If using pets was an optional progression path, then I'd be open to it.

Puck_Goodfellow

Ravudha wrote: »

Vizard Lizard Wizard wrote: »

I'm merely proposing a progression for those that want to master gathering.

Sure, but I prefer to have a progression with tools rather than pets.

If gathering required the use of a pet, it's a bit of a paradigm shift going from pets being optional in MMOs to becoming a necessity. I just really don't like having pets from an RPG perspective, so being forced to use one is a big no no in my book.

If using pets was an optional progression path, then I'd be open to it.

I see what you mean and I agree with you. We've yet to see anything on our tools or say something like an "engineering" type artisan class for making said tools. Could already be within stuff like Blacksmithing.

Could have it more as an aesthetic whether mechanical tools or pet tools whichever way you want to have it. I like having more options so let's leave it at that.

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