Devs: Beast Mastery idea

[BaldingEagle]

Good morning,

I wanted to share a thought I had about how to implement Beast Mastery as a skill, while differentiating mass-tamer types (I'll call them Herders) from true "beast masters". This would also open the door to something I've always felt is needed for tamers - a pet res.

I envision a Beast Master as someone who has chosen to dedicate themselves to one specific animal, bonding with it - we'll call it their Spirit Animal. This bond comes with strengths and weaknesses, but such is the sacrifice that is made. All Beast Masters must dabble in at least a little magic, due to the spiritual nature of the bond, but by no means must be a dedicated mage. I have no idea what is planned for the "Animism" school of magic or what "Tapii" lore is, but for the sake of this suggestion thread, I'll say that Animism will - at least in part - dabble with the spirits of animals. Here's how I envision the Beast Master:

- Beast Mastery skill remains where it is in the skill tree, but is also added as a subskill under Animism - it now has two parent skills
- Beast Mastery can only be learned from a specific NPC in the game, not from a book, and starts at 1
- At Beast Mastery 1, three Animism spells unlock: "Spirit Bond", "Sever Spirit" and "Restore Spirit"
-"Spirit Bond" requires a number of rare reagents, and is used to make a tamed pet into your Spirit Animal. YOU CAN ONLY HAVE ONE.
-"Spirit Bond" (optional) - also requires a unique (hidden) component which is different by each animal type (ie one for wolves, one for horses, etc...)
-"Sever Spirit" also requires several rare reagents, and breaks the otherwise permanent bond you have with your Spirit Animal
-"Sever Spirit" fully resets Beast Mastery and any subskills back to 1
-"Restore Spirit" requires spell components and resurrects your Spirit Animal
-"Restore Spirit" (optional) - could balance this, if needed, by causing things like pet level loss or needing to cast near a Priest
- Beast Mastery starts naturally leveling up once you have a Spirit Animal, and it is out in the world with you
- Higher levels of Beast Mastery unlock specific bonuses for yourself and the pet, as well as some additional spells (such as Spirit Animal-only heals and buffs)
- Pet levels unlock Spirit Animal abilities. Only Spirit Animals get these, not regular tamed pets. Abilities are unique to each species of animal
- Pet levels (optional) - Higher pet level cap for Spirit Animal
- ONLY HORSES / DONKEYS are rideable. The ability to ride other pet types is unlocked if they are your Spirit Animal and if they are a certain level (varies)
- Non-horse pet ARMOR can only be used by your Spirit Animal (gear bags are okay for all tamed pets). Most tameable animal types should have armor options
- Beast Masters CANNOT TAME / OWN OTHER PETS once they bond to a Spirit Animal. The Spirit Animal will be their only pet, including horses!
- The Spirit Animal must have a unique name, not just "Molva" or "Horse". Alternatively, Spirit Bond may give the animal a unique "true name" (RNG)

This would make Beast Masters special, since they get to have only one really unique and specialized pet. That Spirit Animal would get special skills, the ability to be ridden and wear armor, and have special spells apply to it. In addition, it could be ressed if killed. Beast Masters would need to go in on at least Animism for magic, but could eventually dump Taming once they'd settled on a single Spirit Animal. They would still need to ensure enough Pet Points to control the pet, and if its level cap was raised the pet points would go higher too.

"Herder" type tamers, by contrast, would still be able to tame animals readily and have several of them out at once. They would lose the ability to ride anything except horses (as would all except beast masters) and would not get unique beast skills. They would continue to keep the current in-game pet model as something which is disposable - like gear - since they can't currently be ressed.

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on this. Thanks!

 

[Domtomsen]

I dont understand why everybody makes pet ressurects so complicated.
Pets should be loseable like every other equipment.
But like every other equipment you should keep them if you win the fight.
Just make pets ressurectable for 10 mins, exactly on the spot where it died. Either with ressurect spell or through a special veterinary skill with required mats.
Inflict a heavy dmg debuff for a certain time after ressurection to prevent combat ressurection.

Easy solution which solves so many problems. If you win a fight it finally feels like a win for tamers because you did not lose a 150g pet. And pets would still die so its still valuable to kill them if you win against the tamer. And pet brokers would still see trades.
And stupid horse killers without fighting the actual owner finally lose their jobs.

 

[BaldingEagle]

Thanks for the reply.

My intent wasn't really about simplicity, it was about solving a problem while also creating some new mechanics. I think this solution might help a bit with rebalancing the tamer types somewhat, while it also creates brand new "class" opportunities for people to experiment with. Imagine a hybrid type, for instance, who takes just enough beast mastery to bond with their horse and then focuses on mounted combat, unlocking special horse skills so they have a true war mount. By shifting some of the current advantages of tamers (like riding non-horses, pet armor, pet skills, etc) onto beast masters only it effectively diversifies builds (and "nerfs" the pokemon-types a bit too) while rewarding you for focusing on just a single pet instead of a pet army.

Your solution would work, in isolation as a means of doing a pet res. Of course it would also mean that griefers who were more committed would just camp the spot your pet died for 10 minutes to complete the act. And if you were more than 10 min from a priest the pet's gone anyway. Pretty limited for someone who spends as much time as a tamer does finding, taming and leveling that pet. I think they're a bit more than just gear-level and disposable. Pet brokers will still get plenty of trades with my idea too, since very few people would have access to the pet res, and they'd have to fully spec into it.