More control over pets

[Rhias]

In MO1 your control over a pet was pretty limited. You could send it to attack, or return it to you.
However, there was no way to send it to positions or directions. And therefore the pet was frequently in the way of your attacks/spells when sending it to attack.

We need a way to directly control the pet movement.
This would also enable additional tactical depth for e.g. flanking.

I opened a separate thread for this since I kind of hijacked another thread with it.

A simple ground targeted "Go here" ability would be nice both as a reliable way to get your pet out of the action, and because you could say, aim slightly to the side and behind the enemies and tell it "Go here" then tell it to attack an enemy once it's behind their lines for a flanking maneuver. I imagine if you're a melee who uses your pet to give yourself flanking you would very often find yourself snapping off a "go here" command to send it next to your healers.

Of course, that feeds into them being better for ranged classes still IMO as you're going to have a more zoomed-out view of the action as opposed to needing to present your back to the enemy to tell it to go back to your allies. But at least you should be able to keep your own pet from tripping you up if the commands are responsive and long-range enough.

On top of this we could also add "ground based" pet attacks. E.g. a "charge here" command. And the "here" is the position you look at while executing the command. So you would actually need to aim the pet's charge and predict the players movement instead of a heat seeking missle like in MO1.

 

[Kaemik]

A thread started to prevent hijacking a thread that was started to prevent hijacking a threat. Threadception. I like it.

I did have another thread that was all about pets and necromancy minions but I'll cut and paste just the pet-specific section here since I feel that is relevant:

Pets

The most common complaint I see about detractors of pets from MO1 is "You just send the pet at someone and it does all the work for you." As someone who is currently leaning toward a domination and necromancy-focused mage, I can tell you that's NOT how I'd like to see it work in MO2 either. I like the fact that pets are the least aim-based style of combat but that shouldn't mean that they function well if I'm not fully engaged with making them as strong as possible the entire fight.

A good example of a pet system done fairly well is Guild Wars 1. Rangers could have pets and they were alright if you just sent them at a target and then focused on your own abilities but to really have them pop-off you actually had to slot and use pet-skills. Different games, different systems, obviously not a complete 1:1 but there is the basis for something we can work from there. The auto-attacks for every pet, even the strongest pet, should be pretty weak. Melees should easily fend of and slay any pet that is just sent out and forgotten. The real power of pets should come from activated abilities in the form of commands. So a good dominator/tamer will actually need to kind of pay attention to what a pet is doing and issue commands to make it unleash it's more devastating attacks or other abilities.

I also see there is a spell school called "Animism". I feel like this may be a buffing school for pets? If so great. If not, make one. It should absolutely be something required to be a fully effective beastmaster. This means expending mana to really makes pets shine, and it also means potentially having to land abilities on your pets to add a little bit of aim back into a mostly aimless playstyle. While controlling pets should always be a build primarily around ability selection and situational awareness it would be really cool to see builds that are using herding to control something like a pack of hounds and getting off really good buff placement on multiple pets come out ahead of someone just sitting there shooting a barn-sized minotaur with buffs.

 

[Kaemik]

In keeping with what Rhias is saying here. I might add that a pet that has a flank should be pretty good even just with auto-attacks and devastating with any activated abilities. Managing pet positioning can and should be a major part of being a good beast master.

 

[Rhias]

A thread started to prevent hijacking a thread that was started to prevent hijacking a threat. Threadception. I like it.

Well, I also thought the topic deserves extra attention. Beast Mastery & the skills around it require ~ as much primary point as magic or melee combat. So it should also receive similar love as those topics.

 

[Yeonan]

I recall SV mentioned in the past pets being simplistic was intentional.

I think they want to stay away from high manipulation of their every action, and I tend to agree.

I enjoyed using pets but I would prefer they stay basic with some polish instead of a button smashing exercise, some autonomy is good I think.

 

[VeelaVidiVici]

I think there needs to be a balance dependent on the skill points invested in comparison to other combat (melee) related skills; and a second comparison based upon the creature type tamed and if it is naturally aggressive versus more passive this is in regards to combat capabilities and the ability to follow commands. I'm not suggesting this is "the" solution but just an idea... animals which require a higher level of taming ability could have more command options and more aggressive tamed creatures greater combat independence versus passive creatures. Kaemik said "The real power of pets should come from activated abilities in the form of commands" I can see your point but I think lower level creatures should be a little more robust in combat to help with the experience of being a low level tamer..i.e. critters shouldn't just be papermache, otherwise you make some good arguments.

 

[Vagrant]

the pet pathing AI was pretty rubbish in MO, so there wasn't much chance of decent manipulation.

though some basic pointing placement should be allowable, perhaps with higher beast mastery, perhaps a time frame where the creature has to travel to the location, within short range, to assist with strategic defence or attack, you always had to 'pet stay here' to place them, then could only call them back to you, hopefully there may be some allowances for those who put all their character in to this.

a Dire Wolf should be able to hear your call from afar and move fast from a distance but perhaps be killed easier than a Molva which should be sluggish yet stubborn and difficult to move and call, there's so much room for complexity within the coding of individual creatures dependant on the 'Beast Master' or controller.

I was previously, and will again, be full tamer/mage with domination and with any luck some animism depending on points, Henrik did say we will be able to have 2 fully fledged builds within our one slot, I intend on again trying to stick to the entire profession of Taming covering all possible lores, probably magic to support or perhaps to more fully allow animism and domination.

I agree with @Rhias that Beast Mastery didn't get much love, I had all of those skills and subsets at maximum and gained no benefit whatsoever when the coin-operated breeding came in.

I did appreciate maxing out creature control and animal care/herding in the early days, there's a high challenge of risk/reward being able to trail 5 horses around and keep them loyal and fed within an open pvp full loot environment, I hope to get back to that full time.

I've been out of MO too long to remember the other skills and details though so I'm looking forward to what others say here