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Utility Pets - Scavenger/Loot Pet
Puck_Goodfellow
Member
I guess I just couldn't help but think of this after playing a lot of ARPGs recently. The latest was The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and it was decent but it had an interesting mechanic I've not really seen done elsewhere.
In Van Helsing you have a permanent companion of the lady Katarina who you can set to auto-loot gold and items into her own separate inventory for you including just setting a gold value since another function she has is to make a shop run to sell whatever is in her inventory.
With that preamble out of the way it did get me thinking since I was researching MMOs again recently including Ashes and it made me think of what other games have similar features. I suppose the most prominent one is Runescape with a lot of endgame items dedicated to auto-looting and cleaning up trash drops.
Still, I haven't really seen it done in a more 3D first person MMO.
Now I've speculated on what utility pets and companions Ashes could have since it's been stated as a goal and so far there's of course been speculation on pets that help with gathering skills and whatnot but what about combat pets? There hasn't been much given on what combat pets could do so it's all just been speculation.
Now I would love to have some racoon, red panda or even weasel type pet to loot some corpses while I continue fighting but it's hard to say it would be good for the game. Plus without much of a drop table in Alpha-1 it's hard to even say whether a utility pet for looting would even be that useful but there is at least a couple ways I could imagine a utility pet could enhance loot without even doing something as dubious as auto-looting.
One example is a pet that eats or otherwise eliminates corpses that have been fully looted. This could give extra crafting components such as essence or what have you. Call it a corpse eater pet if you will. It could almost be thought of like the Desecrate ability from Nekros in Warframe.
Perhaps the ultimate loot enhancer pet would be one that enhances your skinning/butchery and eats the corpse after you're done so you wouldn't have to switch between those two types of utility pet.
Obviously this is just me spitballing but I hope it's given you food for thought on utility pets and what could be possible outside what people might normally think of.
In Van Helsing you have a permanent companion of the lady Katarina who you can set to auto-loot gold and items into her own separate inventory for you including just setting a gold value since another function she has is to make a shop run to sell whatever is in her inventory.
With that preamble out of the way it did get me thinking since I was researching MMOs again recently including Ashes and it made me think of what other games have similar features. I suppose the most prominent one is Runescape with a lot of endgame items dedicated to auto-looting and cleaning up trash drops.
Still, I haven't really seen it done in a more 3D first person MMO.
Now I've speculated on what utility pets and companions Ashes could have since it's been stated as a goal and so far there's of course been speculation on pets that help with gathering skills and whatnot but what about combat pets? There hasn't been much given on what combat pets could do so it's all just been speculation.
Now I would love to have some racoon, red panda or even weasel type pet to loot some corpses while I continue fighting but it's hard to say it would be good for the game. Plus without much of a drop table in Alpha-1 it's hard to even say whether a utility pet for looting would even be that useful but there is at least a couple ways I could imagine a utility pet could enhance loot without even doing something as dubious as auto-looting.
One example is a pet that eats or otherwise eliminates corpses that have been fully looted. This could give extra crafting components such as essence or what have you. Call it a corpse eater pet if you will. It could almost be thought of like the Desecrate ability from Nekros in Warframe.
Perhaps the ultimate loot enhancer pet would be one that enhances your skinning/butchery and eats the corpse after you're done so you wouldn't have to switch between those two types of utility pet.
Obviously this is just me spitballing but I hope it's given you food for thought on utility pets and what could be possible outside what people might normally think of.
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Comments
Not for As.....
You know what? I cant even bring myself to say it, considering how bad looting is right now. I agree as long as it wouldnt get OP or paid for.
I am also not keen on it going back to town to sell items on your behalf, as going to nodes to sell your certificates is actually a key thing in this game.
This just leaves the assistance in looting. I'm all for making it easier to loot in any game - deciding which items to pick up and which to leave is a necessary skill in many games. To me, by the time we get to just making it easier to pick up loot, we are not really needing to go as far as implementing a pet system - they could just change the looting UI.
Not that I am against it being pets - I just don't see a need for that once you pull out the parts of it that are not suited to Ashes.
Ya, I don't think a pet that can sell your trash loot for you would work for AoC. As for having something that has its own inventory we've already had an example in having a pack mule for holding your gatherables such as mining materials. I think it was talked about in a Q&A but I distinctly remember Steven himself talking about it.
My thoughts are simply expanding on it from just passive extra storage to something that can take a more active role. So a pack mule would be a low level companion whereas a loot assist companion would be a higher level companion.
Regarding improving the looting UI I don't disagree that having a better UI would make a loot assist pet redundant. However, my main focus was to talk about loot enhancement where an example would be getting extra crafting components.
As you mentioned it doesn't have to be pets that help with that sort of thing but maybe in some circumstances it would be nice and would certainly make Taming and Animal Husbandry more valuable if it can assist in more than just better mounts.
I'm probably biased though since I've played Runescape for a long time and see Summons/Pets/Companions and whatever you want to call them as more than just something that gives you more damage.
To reiterate, some possible functions of utility pets don't have to be done by pets per say and could simply be done by some utility item as it were but I still think it's cool to have that style of having Summons/Pets/Companions help you outside of combat.
Imagine a 25 ppl raid prying through an evil dragon's lair with 25 squirrels hopping behind cleaning up the dragonkin corpses.
Hmmmm.
But 25 rabid squirrels tearing a dragon apart sounds badass.
Aren't we all sinners?
Indeed.
I can see an autoloot feature being a possible skill mules could have, which seems like the most appropriate place for it.
Reminds me a mechanic that belong in a slot machine game diablo 3.
What's worse is usually these things cater to bot and players to use bots.
Additionally websites and groups try to use mechanics like these to farm and monetise things in the game they try to sell online or in-game which would alter the player built and driven market of the game.
Then it evolves into, why cant my pet skin the animal for me, why cant my pet cut down the tree for me? why cant I have a pet that just plays the game for me?
I'd be ok with an auto-loot feature as long as the radius is not too ridiculous.
Auto loot makes easier to fill the game with bots that will ruin the economy...and as @Enigmatic Sage said, It only encourage lazyness and being less engaged with the game...I want more stuff to do not less!