Pets are ruining small scale PVP

[Rahz]

Do you all feel if pets were left unchanged or damage was shifted more to skills, but instead a new primary was added that you needed at 100 to have the current pet damage, would that fix it?

Like aside from the models stacking, is making the player weaker a solution?

The reason I ask is that I think part of the design philosophy of the game is that the strength of pets and other npcs in general is trying to be somewhat realistic. As in, fighting a single high level bear should be somewhat difficult. Fighting a wolfpack should be difficult.

Im not sure if another primary would be a good "fix". I can only speak for myself but another primary for pet-damage would break my build. I already don't run taming since mounted magery is kinda necessary to get anywhere and i need an alternative to magic when it comes to damage since mana is very limited. The big problem I see with builds is actually Archery. Mage+Pet+Melee is weaker than mage+pet+archery because it needs more primary points.
I think the best course of action would be to nerf pets that aren't max level by nerfing their damage until they reach max level. ( no more 3-4 wolves at once) We'll have to see how it's actually balanced. A footie in 50g worth of gear should be able to just slaughter a 500g pet? That also can't be the solution and I am pretty sure Oghmium Armor + Cronite Sword would get the job done against most pets, even if healing is involved.
Also as a dexmage Im already fast enough. There is absolutely no need for my pet to be able to run that far from me to run someone down. Just makes it impossible to escape once i gain the upper hand.

 

[Tashka]

The solution need to adress the reasons for why pets are so op.

First is the lack of stamina bar. Well i'm not sure about this one. You aren't outrunning most pets anyway unless you're alvarin, and dex mages are cancer so screw them. Only fat, old, and ugly should be allowed to be mages in this game, so pets obliterating skeletal sheevras despite all their speed is a good thing. Anyway a better solution would be to reduce the damage output of a pet if it's too far away from the owner.

Next is the fact that you can control like 2 direwolves on most characters, even melee, 3 with some investment, and since pets don't friendlyfire, two or more guys with 2 direwolves can each focus you with their pets and you're done. You aren't parrying that. Solution - increase counter reduced effectiveness for pets to like 80% damage reduced, maybe even scaling with the number of attackers, and make pets that can be blocked but not parried trigger counter reduction (only against pets) on blocking.

Third is the fact that pets can be trained afk in the complete safety of your stronghold. Fixing strongholds wouldn't fix much, people would find a way to train their pets in complete or relative safety (say by having them attack you while running in circles on a horse). I think pets should be trained the same way as you obtain clade xp - by actually killing dangerous stuff in dangerous places. However considering how useless most low level pets are even in pve, the power/level curve could be adjusted, and time to level reduced.

 

[ElPerro]

The solution need to adress the reasons for why pets are so op.

First is the lack of stamina bar. Well i'm not sure about this one. You aren't outrunning most pets anyway unless you're alvarin, and dex mages are cancer so screw them. Only fat, old, and ugly should be allowed to be mages in this game, so pets obliterating skeletal sheevras despite all their speed is a good thing. Anyway a better solution would be to reduce the damage output of a pet if it's too far away from the owner.

Next is the fact that you can control like 2 direwolves on most characters, even melee, 3 with some investment, and since pets don't friendlyfire, two or more guys with 2 direwolves can each focus you with their pets and you're done. You aren't parrying that. Solution - increase counter reduced effectiveness for pets to like 80% damage reduced, maybe even scaling with the number of attackers, and make pets that can be blocked but not parried trigger counter reduction (only against pets) on blocking.

Third is the fact that pets can be trained afk in the complete safety of your stronghold. Fixing strongholds wouldn't fix much, people would find a way to train their pets in complete or relative safety (say by having them attack you while running in circles on a horse). I think pets should be trained the same way as you obtain clade xp - by actually killing dangerous stuff in dangerous places. However considering how useless most low level pets are even in pve, the power/level curve could be adjusted, and time to level reduced.

Thats the issue, pets shouldnt be able to outrun players at all. Not even MO1 necromancy pets were that retarded, its a huge buff to zergs and kills any chance of kiting which was the primary way to fight outnumbered in MO1. You might be able to kill the direwolves but it let the zerg catch up to you

Also unblockable attacks are dumb asf and even normal directional attacks are unparriable if theres 3 direwolves/zombies clipping into each other. Just make it like MO1 where center blocks all attacks, problem solved.

I doubt making pets harder to train will improve anything, it will only make pet users think they deserve their pet to be OP. Just nerf the damn things, they dont even belong in a skill based game.

 

[Tashka]

I doubt making pets harder to train will improve anything, it will only make pet users think they deserve their pet to be OP.

Exactly, so what? Fewer people will be able to train pets at all. Pets aren't going anywhere, and there's no middleground when it comes to pets. Because of their nature, i can't imagine what the (notoriously bad) balance team must do to make pets not OP but still useful. Screaming "just remove pets they don't belong in this game" isn't going to help, SV won't remove a feature they spent so much time and money working on, and they will never nerf them enough for you people to be satisfied. They won't even make down block parry all pets attacks because that would be a waste of the animation team's work. You all need to adjust your expectations or find another game.

 

[you]

 

[manure]

Theres indeed no way to survive when you are dismounted and theres a pet chasing you.

I see some people saying that you can simply kill them with 3 or 4 hits... but hey, not everyone has the same template !
The only way for that to work is if your char is a warrior on heavy armor.

What about pure mages ? Pure archers ? Or anything else ?

I reiterate : if you are dismounted and theres a pet on you, theres nothing you can do. Period.

This, obviously, is badly designed and not balanced.

I think our devs should put some love on the matter and fix this crap.

Theres no more battles anywhere without a god damn tamer involved to ruin the fun.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Even a steel wearing warrior is at a massive disadvantage when trying to kill pets while the enemy is bowing you or flamestriking you from his horse.

Yes you may survive the pets but then you still have to contend with a (usually mounted) tamer.

The worst build is the necro/tamer/ma/mm build. Sitting on a risen 500 hp horse. With a links that you cant outrun, and unlimited greater walkers that he can summon and send to attack you. Meanwhile being able to mage bang or use bows while mounted. Absolutely disgusting gameplay.

The fact that such a build is even allowed shows how little these devs know about balance.

 

[xguild]

In my experience complaining about balance issues does not get devs to respond, abusing and exploiting them mercilessly usually resolves the issue in short order.

Aka, if it’s OP, start doing it.

 

[Turbizzler]

In my experience complaining about balance issues does not get devs to respond, abusing and exploiting them mercilessly usually resolves the issue in short order.

Aka, if it’s OP, start doing it.

Unfortunately that is not the case with SV.
Mortal Online 1 was the epitome of flavor of the month weapons and builds that took anywhere from 6 months to literal years to be finally patched. Shit, somethings never got patched lel

Pre-patch tridermic shields, pre-patch sator spears, demon bats, perfect bull horses, spider horses, 1 - 2 shot mauls, 1 - 2 shot double khal axes, 1 shot spear lances, silly flanged mace lances, 2 - 3 shot weakspot spears, 2 - 3 shot weakspot daggers, tribrid wheel chair build(Fat mage, MC with beast mastery) etc etc etc And that's just scratching the surface lol

SV has been faster in some aspects with patching specific things for MO2, but the same issue arises where PvP balance is left unchanged and imbalanced for prolonged periods, then they just add more things on top of it without attending to the issue.

 

[xguild]

Unfortunately that is not the case with SV.
Mortal Online 1 was the epitome of flavor of the month weapons and builds that took anywhere from 6 months to literal years to be finally patched. Shit, somethings never got patched lel

Pre-patch tridermic shields, pre-patch sator spears, demon bats, perfect bull horses, spider horses, 1 - 2 shot mauls, 1 - 2 shot double khal axes, 1 shot spear lances, silly flanged mace lances, 2 - 3 shot weakspot spears, 2 - 3 shot weakspot daggers, tribrid wheel chair build(Fat mage, MC with beast mastery) etc etc etc And that's just scratching the surface lol

SV has been faster in some aspects with patching specific things for MO2, but the same issue arises where PvP balance is left unchanged and imbalanced for prolonged periods, then they just add more things on top of it without attending to the issue.

Im sure that is true, at least so far back as I can remember but the advice is none the less the same. If there is a weakness or unbalance in the game your choices are complain about and be victim to it, or abuse if for your own gains. Wolf or sheep? Those as always are your two options.

 

[manure]

In my experience complaining about balance issues does not get devs to respond, abusing and exploiting them mercilessly usually resolves the issue in short order.

Aka, if it’s OP, start doing it.

Thats absolutely true... And works indeed.
But the fact is... Its not appealing for everyone to play like that... I wont play something in the way I dislike just to be able to compete equal to equal...

Its the developers obligation to balance the game. They have tons of feedback, they can test it. Why not simply fixing this crap ?
There are so many ways to fix... Make pets have stamina....make pets stop attacking after some hits, or when being distant to owner...

Make pets only attack if the owner is dismounted... Etc !!

Listen to your players, god damn it... Fix this game.
We re gonna start paying monthly... Its time to start LISTENING to our desires !

Oh, and before I forget : HURRY UP WITH THIEVING, damnit ! Been waiting 2 years for this.

 

[Robmo]

I came to the conclusion MO2 is the second stage of a revenge project for Henrik, with MO1 being the beginning. He has a deep rage and depression slowly releasing after being bottled up for decades. His tamer mage experience in Ultima online, was ruined by the big bag melee man. He has now taken it upon himself to develop games where he advertises skill based melee combat as a trap, then inflicts pain on melee players in some weird sadistic payback.

This is oddly funny

 

[Turbizzler]

This is oddly funny

Henrik has traumatized me, I expect compensation in the form of PvP balance patches that don't involved me being chased down by an army of pets while mounteds blast me with arrows and magic.

 

[TruthGlass]

The time investment for pets is huge. Are they strong sure, but nothing you wear cost anything close to the time a pet cost unless maybe you are using a skadite weapon.

 

[ElPerro]

The time investment for pets is huge. Are they strong sure, but nothing you wear cost anything close to the time a pet cost unless maybe you are using a skadite weapon.

Yeah afk leveling a pet a few hours makes it destroying any foot fighter/hybrid/mage with 1 button perfectly balanced.

 

[grilo]

thing is... its not "pets", there is a reason no1 uses a cougar or a panther, its just op pets like the chickens...(i miss the mo1 T-chickens...) honestly i miss mo1 every tree in that game felt like it had a story... this crap legit feels like a randomized world with store assets...

they manage to make a bigger world, feal smaller and more empty then mo1...

 

[ElPerro]

thing is... its not "pets", there is a reason no1 uses a cougar or a panther, its just op pets like the chickens...(i miss the mo1 T-chickens...) honestly i miss mo1 every tree in that game felt like it had a story... this crap legit feels like a randomized world with store assets...

they manage to make a bigger world, feal smaller and more empty then mo1...

Any pet that can stickyback players with no stam is broken IMO. It makes zerging so much easier, the most useful tactic for figthing zergs in MO1 was kiting and then turning on them when a few got overextended from their group. In MO2 thats impossible as they will just send a pet on your mage and your smaller group will have to turn immediately on the pet or let the mage die.

I would prefer if pets were way tankier but slower, so they can be used in big fights but dont ruin small scale. And not possible to use them while mounted, thats just an abomination, mounted MA/MM "necro arcane" or whatever the fuck the kids call it these days with a pet and 5 zombies. Totally balanced build.

 

[fartbox]

What everyone is ignoring is that pets provide a way for casual/high ping players to be competitive. I'm ok with removing pets completely but you must add in abilities or some other mechanic for the plebs where they can win a 1v1 against a veteran under the right circumstances. If you build your game around the top .5% players then you'll have a .5% population. Subs are coming soon, personally I won't be paying one as I cant rationalize paying for a game where most of the content is off-limits to me. Many other players that are still playing like me will come to this same conclusion once real money becomes involved.

Right now a new player without thousands of hours of dueling experience and good ping and good trinkets and good gear will never ever in a million years win a 1v1 against someone in Levia, Nightfall, Omerta, or any other veteran guild(Unless they have pets). That's if they get a 1v1 in the first place, which is unlikely. When you compare this to OSRS: A new player can get lucky and get a crazy combo, KO'ing a veteran player in the best armor. Compare to Albion: Many of the builds operate as hard counters, rock/paper/scissors a new player can win against a superior opponent in corrupted dungeons with regularity. Compare to EVE: Most of the fights are consensual with how intel works in the game. People just opt-out of fights they have no chance to win. You won't see a lone frigate engaging a battleship but the battleship can't really do anything to catch the frigate if the frigate does not allow it. EVE PVP felt very consensual to me, even in nullsec around bubbles because of the interdiction nullifiers, cloaks and microwarpdrives. Compare to dead full-loot games: DFUW, Shadowbane: This is your homework, I think you'll find these games have much in common with Mortal 2 however.

One might argue that Archeage also fell victim to this as players who could not invest the real money required to be competitive decided to opt-out instead. Despite the game being amazingly polished and featured. Archeage also had very little risk associated with dying, yet it still struggled to convince the casuals to stick around even with all the bells and whistles.

You can say that is a positive design feature that casual players aren't competitive and I will say that is an opinion. I can only base my conclusions off metrics...not feelings. The metrics say that games that allow more players to remain competitive have larger populations; Those who are not competitive in predatory environments usually just "Opt-out".

Maybe your goal isn't to build a high-population game...Ok fair enough but If you want to play in a low-population environment you have to find out "How low" is acceptable to keep the lights on because if you don't then the game can transition from a "low-pop" to a "no-pop" pretty quickly. I think removing pets now with current mechanics would be detrimental to an already low-population game.

Also I forgot to mention any Thursar near a house will absolutely not die to even two tamers/necros unless they dismount. Since there are houses practically everywhere it's going to be hard to find a spot where an arcane archer can down a Thursar even in low-tier gear (molarium and a flake for example). So if you really hate pets that much just play Thursar.

 

[Jackdstripper]

What everyone is ignoring is that pets provide a way for casual/high ping players to be competitive. I'm ok with removing pets completely but you must add in abilities or some other mechanic for the plebs where they can win a 1v1 against a veteran under the right circumstances. If you build your game around the top .5% players then you'll have a .5% population. Subs are coming soon, personally I won't be paying one as I cant rationalize paying for a game where most of the content is off-limits to me. Many other players that are still playing like me will come to this same conclusion once real money becomes involved.

Right now a new player without thousands of hours of dueling experience and good ping and good trinkets and good gear will never ever in a million years win a 1v1 against someone in Levia, Nightfall, Omerta, or any other veteran guild(Unless they have pets). That's if they get a 1v1 in the first place, which is unlikely. When you compare this to OSRS: A new player can get lucky and get a crazy combo, KO'ing a veteran player in the best armor. Compare to Albion: Many of the builds operate as hard counters, rock/paper/scissors a new player can win against a superior opponent in corrupted dungeons with regularity. Compare to EVE: Most of the fights are consensual with how intel works in the game. People just opt-out of fights they have no chance to win. You won't see a lone frigate engaging a battleship but the battleship can't really do anything to catch the frigate if the frigate does not allow it. EVE PVP felt very consensual to me, even in nullsec around bubbles because of the interdiction nullifiers, cloaks and microwarpdrives. Compare to dead full-loot games: DFUW, Shadowbane: This is your homework, I think you'll find these games have much in common with Mortal 2 however.

One might argue that Archeage also fell victim to this as players who could not invest the real money required to be competitive decided to opt-out instead. Despite the game being amazingly polished and featured. Archeage also had very little risk associated with dying, yet it still struggled to convince the casuals to stick around even with all the bells and whistles.

You can say that is a positive design feature that casual players aren't competitive and I will say that is an opinion. I can only base my conclusions off metrics...not feelings. The metrics say that games that allow more players to remain competitive have larger populations; Those who are not competitive in predatory environments usually just "Opt-out".

Maybe your goal isn't to build a high-population game...Ok fair enough but If you want to play in a low-population environment you have to find out "How low" is acceptable to keep the lights on because if you don't then the game can transition from a "low-pop" to a "no-pop" pretty quickly. I think removing pets now with current mechanics would be detrimental to an already low-population game.

Also I forgot to mention any Thursar near a house will absolutely not die to even two tamers/necros unless they dismount. Since there are houses practically everywhere it's going to be hard to find a spot where an arcane archer can down a Thursar even in low-tier gear (molarium and a flake for example). So if you really hate pets that much just play Thursar.

The argument that: in a full loot pvp game there needs to be an “i win button” that allows low skill new players to obliterate highly skilled veterans simply because the game needs more new players…..is frankly absurd.
Its like saying chess needs the option to start with 3 queens so that nubes can stomp veterans.

The only thing that will happen is that all the vets will also get the “i win button” and the game just devolves into “who presses the button first” dumb fest. Time spent farming the best equipment will be the only differentiator, and vets will still win.

Full loot pvp games are very niche games. The majority of players that try them do not stick around. Hell, if you want to cater to the masses then expand Haven into a full sized map and people will flock to it. That is a much much better strategy than trying to dumb down combat so the newbies and low skilled players can compete.

The only players that stick around in a full loot free for all game are those that enjoy challenging mechanics that reward skill. Remove those challenging mechanics and you will also lose the only audience your game has to begin with.

Pets need fixing, everyone thats been killed by them enough times says so. Its no fun, it’s not skilled, it has almost no counters and its not a good direction for the game.

 

[fartbox]

The argument that: in a full loot pvp game there needs to be an “i win button” that allows low skill new players to obliterate highly skilled veterans simply because the game needs more new players…..is frankly absurd.
Its like saying chess needs the option to start with 3 queens so that nubes can stomp veterans.

The only thing that will happen is that all the vets will also get the “i win button” and the game just devolves into “who presses the button first” dumb fest. Time spent farming the best equipment will be the only differentiator, and vets will still win.

Full loot pvp games are very niche games. The majority of players that try them do not stick around. Hell, if you want to cater to the masses then expand Haven into a full sized map and people will flock to it. That is a much much better strategy than trying to dumb down combat so the newbies and low skilled players can compete.

The only players that stick around in a full loot free for all game are those that enjoy challenging mechanics that reward skill. Remove those challenging mechanics and you will also lose the only audience your game has to begin with.

Pets need fixing, everyone thats been killed by them enough times says so. Its no fun, it’s not skilled, it has almost no counters and its not a good direction for the game.

I understand your feelings, your emotion in this case. But emotion doesn't keep the lights on. The players who enjoy being at the top of the MO2 skill caste need casual players too, to prey upon. If they leave, many of your predatory players will follow. Many such cases in history.

You didn't provide any evidence or supporting arguments that people would be willing to pay to play a game where they always lose against a superiorly skilled opponent. But you did use a chess analogy and I can appreciate that, being 2100 elo myself. For the same reasons that poker is far more popular then chess is that same reason that people won't pay to play games like MO2. In many cases, they won't even play for free. Most of our chess pros end up going into Poker at some point in their career because chess is very poor at generating revenue. MO2 gets a daily 1400-1600 players as of right now on the precipice of its most anticipated content patch. About 25% of those players are alts, potentially more. The game sold 500k copies. So it is safe to say that people aren't even willing to play MO2 for free in its current state. You are asking to make things even worse for yourself.

You said the only reasons people stick around in a full loot game is for skilled gameplay. If that's the case then why are Albion, OSRS and EVE much more popular games? They have low to mid tier skill-cap gameplay, they also have full-loot on death.

People aren't playing games for the reasons you think they are. They are playing to get a dopamine delivery from their brain on certain actions. Character progression is a great way to deliver that, so is a rare drop, so is winning a fight., and there are others. If you put players in an environment where they always lose, they just leave. The top of the MO2 skill caste have thousands up thousands of hours of practice, on-top of other advantages, It's not uncommon for them to play 10+ hours in a day.

That's a really tough sell to a normal person unfortunately: "Hi, come pay to play our game, you won't win unless you can devote 8hour+ days for many months, there's no guarantee you'll ever get there, but we promise you'll have fun if you can!"

I've already reached a point in my MO2 career where I don't even play the game anymore outside of safe activities and i've only been playing for a couple months. I log in to fish or duel. There's alot of content I will never see or be able to do because I am priced out of it as a casual solo player but i'm over it because I know I won't be paying the sub at this point.

I've played every single full-loot or partial-loot PVP game that was released from 1990's to now. Even obscure ones like Wurm online or Wizardry online. No one is more qualified then I am to tell you what makes or breaks a game. I've seen dozens of titles come and go, only a few survived the test of the time and they didn't do it because they "got lucky". They designed a game that people were willing to pay to play for long periods of times. This allows them to fund development and keep the game new and exciting.

It's not rocket science... But if you have any evidence or supporting arguments that enough people would be willing to pay to play a game like Mortal 2 to keep it running then sure, lets hear it.