Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I personally think both Options are quite good. So the ones who want to have a "fully Skelly" Combat Pet, can have that.
The ones who want more something like a decaying Animal or so, should be able to have such a Combat Pet, as well.
Ravens are a good Choice - as they are often connected with Death.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
AoC class wish: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/422108#Comment_422108
If someone wants to play a hunter fantasy with a wolf, a rogue with a pet viper or a mage with a feline familiar, then why would anyone want to take that from them? Let them trade personal power to be accompanied by a pet, and those who dont like it can just go by themselves. Imo, this is a great system. Worrying about balance at the current state feels unnecessary, since if they can't balance this setup then there is no way they'll be able to balance all classes to an acceptable standard either (which is way worse, imo.)
In my experience, pets do nothing but roll over dead instantly in bigger PvP scenarios, so I would not worry at all about that. And if people have an issue with pets in smaller PvP scenarios..... well, as always in PvP; "get gud" or get a pet of your own. *Shrug* There will always be some kind of variable for people to be angry about in PvP.... x]
And when it comes to PvE.... Well, soulbeast in GW2 speaks for itself! Pets in GW2 roll over dead very easily in more difficult OW (open world) scenarios (except for the engineer mech......), so most rangers (the pet class) usually roll without a pet in OW since it is just faster that way! X]
Combat pets in the sense of how WoW did it where it was like a little Pokémon minigame.. spectacular! Though I wish it was more fleshed out.
Gimme my Bony Skelly-Raven or my zombified little Pet Dog, lol. 😁 . 😅
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
It may follow you around out of combat, but when the fighting starts.
You must tell it to attack a target
You must tell it to use each skill when you want it to use that particular skill.
If its ranged, you must tell it where to stand, if its melee it will follow the target you send it at.
It doesn't move out of aoe on its own, you must do that.
Make the pet part of the player experience.
The entire reason I don't like combat pets, because if they give the player some benefit during combat for no effort, then it reduces the players worth. And I mean that very simply by the pet did some percentage of the total, the player did some percentage of the total. The player did not do it all.
Notice me Taerrik-Senpai !! (lol)
The only Reason i like for Example Hunter Pets in WoW - is the fact that i don't need to split my whole Focus/Conscience between my Character and my Pet.
I openly admit that.
Now " i " have chronical Concentration Disorder since Birth -> but what for Excuses have Players who don't have that ? Ha ha ha hah !
What other Excuse aside from being lazy would they have ? Welp ! Since i want to at least "test-play" a Necromancer ingame,
i am willing to beat my Brain (metaphorically) - to whip myself trying to do it decently. If it's to much for me, i just stick to things like Rogue or other Class i can use directly to assist my Friends, as always.
However i am confident i wouldn't like to use a Combat Pet, if it has more than Two or maybe THREE own Abilities i would need to combine with my own Focus on my Characters Abilities,
while Combat Pet and my own Character would be clearly seperated from each other. By like a LOT of Meters. I imagine my Combat Pet to be like a Tank shielding me from Mobs or Players i want to nuke/shoot from a Distance - and so i don't have to take them on myself in Melee.
If i can't prevent that - i might as well skip the Combat Pet completely.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
It should not be about splitting your focus.
If a class uses a combat pet, then these skills should be baked in to the class identity.
A combat pet shouldn't be an additional boost, but rather, part of what you do.
IF you are a ranger, shooting, your combat pet should have skills you would use to slow or root your target. You stand at range and pew pew and send pet to attack. When enemy is moving towards you, you order pet to slow/snare the enemy so you can back away more.
If enemy turn to slice up your pet, you tell it to run away, making the enemy waste time following pet, getting further from you while you continue to pew pew. Sure the pet is taking damage but your not.
Balance the class around the existence and use of the pet skills if the class is to have pets.
Otherwise its just a passive boost and doesnt even have a point to be there in the first place. Could just boost the player by that amount and not have the pet.
AoC class wish: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/422108#Comment_422108
I imagine them being moderately useful in PvE, especially in smaller, less combat-focused groups, like gatherers, and in PvP hardly useful at all, except perhaps like a lizards tail, discarded in order to get a brief head start on fleeing.
Intrepid has been selling skins for combat pets for years now, and has promised them as a form of horizontal progression.
I look forward to testing how useful these combat pets will be in Alpha 2, and I trust Intrepid's design.
Secondary class summoners should either have temporary combat pets - or a permanent weaker combat pet. They should be quite weak for secondary classes else they will become a mandatory secondary class, especially for ranged classes that have the most to gain by a pet tank.
The idea of being able to make yourself weaker and summon a combat pet is interesting but I don't think it's worth the complexity of a pet management system. I think the same type of effect could be done by swapping out pieces of gear, or changing your secondary class/spec.
Why do you like combat pets?
Personally, I like combat pets for many reasons, but mainly for the fact that you are able to have a companion that you can utilize to fight alongside you and engage with game content for times when you do not have a full party of friends present.
Why don't you like them?
As many others have said, pets become a problem when certain pets become the meta for all game situations, or when they provide too much power to the player to be ignored and thus force those who do not like pets to utilize one.
What are the benefits to the game?
Ideally combat pets provide yet another fun and exciting way for players to engage with the world of Verra. If combat pets are implemented correctly they give those who choose to engage with the system a sense of accomplishment for finding or raising rare and exotic pets. While combat pets shouldn't provide a player a meta defining amount of power, they should serve as a mark of prestige. Just like earning a rare mount or title lets a player show off their achievements to other players; so should showing off a exotic/rare/high level pet that the player has taken time and effort to raise up from nothing (which I will elaborate more on later).
High level and or endgame players often find themselves in a situation where once they've beaten the dungeons, conquered the raids, achieved R1 in PVP, etc. that they have nothing else worthwhile doing and farm old content for mounts, loot appearances, money, etc. Having another gameplay loop that is outside the norm and offers another way for players to distinguish themselves from others is a positive in my eyes for people who have already, don't want, or don't have the time to engage with the aforementioned systems.
What negatives do they bring?
Negatives I could foresee or hope against would be access to rare or powerful pets from the in game shop, certain pets being "too" powerful, combat pets in general providing too much player power, or the combat pets system itself being unfun or uninteresting to engage with. If Intrepid holds to their word that player power will never come from the in game store then my first worry is moot, but I felt it necessary to mention as I feel it is important we always make it clear that one of the number one MMO killers for the average player is pay to win elements in the store.
How would you like combat pets implemented into Ashes of Creation?
To elaborate on what I touched on earlier, I think that combat pets should be raised by the player from level 1 up to a level cap equal to the player's level or traded from one player to another (a limited number of trades per pet - 3 before the pet is trade locked. Unlimited account level pet trading ie main to alt and back.) Pets should share exp with the player (though get less than the player - say an 80/20 split) and thus lower the exp their owner receives, slowing the owners rate of leveling to balance out the fact they have additional assistance in combat, similar to other games where exp is shared between party members. This slows the leveling of pets with non max level owners and ensures their level never exceeds their owner's level. To further that point, any pet the player earns, breeds, or otherwise obtains that is higher level than the owner's own level should be unusable by that player until they acquire a level equal to or above the pet's level. This stops players from trading max level pets to their alts or other lower level players then taking them into PVE or PVP and wreaking havoc where they don't belong.
I don't necessarily agree with combat pets being a part of the animal husbandry system as this limits the types of pets we can have. The combat pet system being it's own thing would hopefully mean having access to a wider variety of pet species than just "animals" and or beasts. This adds to the fun and offers players with all different aesthetic preferences a better opportunity to find their perfect pet or one better suited to their situational needs.
Combat pets should be able to die, and when they do I think they should either go on cooldown or require their owner to take them to a special pet merchant to revive them again to bypass the cooldown. The cooldown or price to revive a pet should scale with the level of the pet and thus penalize those who are careless with the use of their pets against enemies that are too strong for the pet to handle. (Players close to, equal to, or above their owners level, raid/world bosses, high level PVE enemies, etc.) This hopefully ensures that players in world PVP have a way to take the other person's pet out of the battle and level the playing field without fear of the player bringing the pet back into battle with a revive spell, summon spell, etc like the summoner class likely has and helps differentiate a summon vs a combat pet's uptime in PVP. This would also differentiate a combat pet's uptime in hard PVE content compared to summoner pets that can just be summoned again every pull.
Some pets should be prized simply because they offer combat buffs or healing similar to the buffs/healing available from other players, but at lower durations/strength/cooldowns and have the pets themselves be easier to kill compared to more damage based pets. This ensures that they aren't just summoned before PVE/PVP combat for their buffs, dismissed and not seen again the whole encounter. The environment or other players in PVP should be able to easily eliminate buffing/healing pets to nullify the advantage they bring to their owner if the pet owner gets careless and leaves them out too long.
TLDR for my ideal implementation: Pets start at level 1, pet level can't exceed owner level, pets leech exp from their owner, pets can only be traded 3 times, pet system is separate from animal husbandry, combat pets die, dead combat pets have a cooldown or cost money to revive early, buffing/healing pets die easier than damage based pets.
Like : it is a Mount when You "summon" it as a Mount or rather - decide to "use" it as a Mount,
and the Moment you "mount off" -> it becomes your Combat-Pet, functioning as such ? I could see this happening. Because when in a Video, the dear Developers mounted off from a bunch of HUGE Rabbits,
the Rabbits were actually STILL there !!! They didn't "vanish", like for Example Mounts do, in World of Warcraft.
So from the Engine and Code, it should be possible.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
To use a combat pet, you have to sacrifice your power and any archetype can use them. We don't know exactly how you give up your power or how easily it will be able to obtain one. We will have to test and see.
The only comparison I have is games where specific classes had permanent pets which did different things. You could have a pet that tanks, or casts spells, etc. It definitely makes the game more solo friendly, but some people want that.
I like combat pets because I love pets in real life. I also love combat pets because I love to watch the combat pets get kills. I love combat pets because I can heal the wounds and tend to the beasts. I love combat pets because I love to build toons and what's better than a furry toon alongside your real toon? I love the sounds combat pets make, I love the power combat pets offer and I love the tactics combat pets offer.
Why don't you like them?
I don't like combat pets when they are limited time span, have to be fed or when they are invincible in battle. I don't want pets to die of old age or a permanent death but pets should be killable in combat just like my actual toon. I want tactics, strategies and down time between fights. I don't want the ability to steam roll in a constant fashion however, I also don't like combat pets that are just fillers - the combat pets must be fully functional and capable in a fight.
What are the benefits to the game?
The benefits to the game involve horizontal progression - i'm all for horizontal progression paths. I love the game has so many horizontal progression paths. I feel combat pets are the perfect addition to horizontal progression paths and will provide a lot of fun moments in combat. I also feel combat pets will be fun to build up and fun to trade. Fun to breed and fun to tame.
What negatives do they bring?
Combat pets should have restrictions on locations they can be used. We don't want the combat pets to swarm around a boss for example - the combat pets might block the tank. I don't believe a combat pet can be 'ranged' but i could be mistaken. It depends what creatures the devs allow to be made combat pets. However, 'ranged' combat pets would be a good boon. If all combat pets are melee then strict adherence in raids will have to be undertaken to ensure no one is out of position or place.
How would you like to see Combat Pets implemented into Ashes of Creation?
I would like combat pets to be functional in PvE and PvP. I don't want combat pets to be overpowered in either sphere but capable in each sphere. I want a wide variety of combat pets to choose from. The ability to own more than one at a time, the ability to choose which to field at a given time and the ability to name the combat pets. I'd also expect combat pets to be able to be healed with the appropriate builds. Buffs should also apply to combat pets with the use of a Bard. I do not believe a combat pet should be able to buff the owner or party members/raid members. Support combat pet should provide heals alone and no buffs at all. In terms of roleplay I would like to field two combat pets at the same time, however, in terms of balance it might be prudent to only be allowed to field one combat pet at a time.
agree maybe ranger aswell, and the subclasses could have the option like mage/summoner for example would also make sense they could have a pet but they would sacraficve something somewhere in the line
If the player has to sacrifice their own power to split their power so to speak it creates an interesting dynamic. The more powerful the pet, the weaker the player is on scale.
I also like the idea of upkeep to maintain pet output and/or pet numbers to encourage more diverse playstyles with augments. Different pet classes or builds so to speak could have unique ways to upkeep pet through debuffs such as maintaining a bleed as the pet survives off of blood or even enemy corpses/souls for resource upkeep etc.
Necromantic and nature could have entirely different upkeep methods for pets.
I dont really think pets should be able to hold threat stronger than tanks or even be close to competing with them especially for PvE. Just game breaking and encourages solo play.
So, you're happy for a healing pet to outpace a bard at healing or match a bard at healing and a dps pet to assist an actual tank (tank doesn't need much power just defence) and yet you won't let dps have a tanking pet?
Honestly, I've seen a lot of broken pets in mmorpg's where the pet just tanks a group and the player sits back with their thumb in their a** while they melt the mob(s) lol. What an amazing skillset for such an immersive experience
Then you got pets that can pull threat and aggro from the tank and hold it quite easily. It's awful in my opinion. I'd rather a tug-o-war of power shifting between the player and the pet. Bring some more risk to the players side to prevent such detrimental design to the game.
I never mentioned anything about a healing pet outpacing a bard. To be honest, I feel there shouldn't be a healing pet especially to the degree you're imagining. Leave the healing to the players. Kind of reminds me of SWTOR where you could solo the first group dungeon with just a healer companion if you kited the boss around a pillar lol. That game definitely had its faults.
A tank sacrificing their power for a dps pet seems like a weird take but I suppose in some ways the primary and secondary archetypes do cross at some point if that's how it is for the tank/summoner. I do like the idea of the players sacrificing X% of power for pet 1, Y% power for pet 2, Z% power for pet 3 etc. How that directly translates to the pet should be an interesting dev discussion when they get to summoner archetype. Who knows, maybe a tank/summoner just uses summons as the spell shape? maybe soak effigy? we'll have to see
Yeah, I mean when I imagine a Tank Pet I think of the Dev Discussion on Tanks in general and how we all wanted Tanks to lose aggro sometimes to keep tanks on their toes. I envision the tank pets to use the same systems and not act like glue. Same applies to the tanks in general.
Summoner with Cleric Secondary can match or surpass Bard Heals with Summons already. I see no reason not to have a healing pet that is actually capable of healing better than not. Would i advise these healing pets are able to heal anyone but the master? I'm not so sure.
That's a fair point. A lot of tanking and threat management is very glue-like as you mentioned. This is why I mentioned the pet could be a spell shape or effigy. Maybe you summon an object that blocks for you or an animated "being", they're all shapes to me lol.
Say you sacrifice 30% of your power to summon, you only have 70% left. Ideally it's the same thing, you're just creating two entities for the power split. The pet in most situations isn't going to be able to do more than the 30% power output you gave it. Just a different way to do the same thing essentially. Pet's can come in all different shapes and forms ranging from animals, beasts, inanimate objects like totems/effigies. etc.
Add upkeep through output management and you got yourself an interesting dynamic in my opinion.
Well, I like that we can equip and level the pets. I prefer if the 30% power loss is not a direct charge of power to the pet. Thus, the pet is kind of in isolation but would die without support from the player. I want to be able to level pets and then sell pets at max level etc. I want to be able to build the pets up and watch the pets grow. I want the pets to be useful but not more powerful than my toon.
I'm not entirely sure what the direct transfer of power will be from player sacrifice to pet power but I don't see the pets being more powerful than the players. It's just a sacrifice X% to boost X%. Just more of an extension of the players versatility of class and design. Certain pets may have genetically exclusive traits/abilities if I am to go off your information about raising them. The player/host is ideally the primary.
Yeah I agree. I think we won't know the full scope until the live game. I think A2 will thrash out the actual details and a lot of changes will be made. Its pointless discussing the actual sums right now. Especially if the pet can be geared or bred differently by a breeder etc.
I will make an interesting point though going back to your cleric + summoner point.
Hypothetically, a cleric + summoner would be primarily a cleric first, with summoner like abilities while being able to potentially use cleric/summoner pets. We could see abilities come off as holy with spirit-like vfx such as a wave of holy spirits as an examples.
Similarly yet quite different,
a summoner + cleric would primarily be summoner first with the summons being more cleric-like with the allowance of similar pet types BUT they could also be allowed to use a larger range of pet types because primarily they are a summoner archetype. Hypothetically, we could see summons ranging drastically different while engaging with cleric-like VFX.
Of course then we get into augments, religion etc. I do believe we will see summoner primary have some sort of advantage with obviously summons. The players that split their power could have a drawback if the pet dies with cool down from returning lost power. That's why the tug-o-war could be interesting in temporarily shifting a little extra power back and forth while not undermining the initial power loss of different summon strengths vs sacrifice.
Also I will say with how players can group summon in sieges, I hope we see higher penalties for great battle summons like siege ogres or siege beasts brought into the battle field.
Well, a summoner+cleric can have dps minions (Death) or healing minions (Life) but, there are also two other augment schools hidden for Cleric. As you say, augments can come from elsewhere too. So its a difficult one to call but Summoner can replace any other class in a group - including support classes. Summons and pets can't buff others or the master so that means these creatures must only heal. So, its difficult to know until we see summoner in action.
Obviously we wont know until they let us know more. This is exactly why summoner classes are usually the last in development to be worked on and revealed. But this doesn't mean that the summoner + cleric wont be able to primarily heal/support while the pet theoretically does other actions around status effects going off what we previously discussed with power splitting to two entities.