Pet and monster targetting

[Tugex]

I know there was a thread about this, but cba to search it

so problem being, why are the monsters so eager to go after me, rather than my pet ? for example, was killing balrons in wrong, and normally discorded it and sicked my ru on it, and immediately had to start running, because the balrons seemed to be about just as enthusiastic on fighting the ru as i am searching for topics. this kinda sucks, cause gotta stay close to heal, and those damn balrons almost one hit kill me, even with disco.

dunno if im doing something wrong, it sucks anyways

edit: oh, and nice to see the loot was fiddled with, bit of a turn off to kill a balron and get some gold and a non magical sword

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15354

[Death]

I know there was a thread about this, but cba to search it

so problem being, why are the monsters so eager to go after me, rather than my pet ? for example, was killing balrons in wrong, and normally discorded it and sicked my ru on it, and immediately had to start running, because the balrons seemed to be about just as enthusiastic on fighting the ru as i am searching for topics. this kinda sucks, cause gotta stay close to heal, and those damn balrons almost one hit kill me, even with disco.

dunno if im doing something wrong, it sucks anyways

edit: oh, and nice to see the loot was fiddled with, bit of a turn off to kill a balron and get some gold and a non magical sword

Could be one of 2 things. 1) You are the primary target (First thing the balron targetted) or 2) The balron switched its target onto you.

Monsters are smart and they know who's giving the orders to their pet. The stronger monsters such as balrons, named creatures or bosses will sometimes take a liking to the tamer or any other player who's fighting but if you can keep a distance between you and the target and keep your pet on it, they'll often lose interest in you and go back to attacking your pet. Helpful tactics to use if this happens to you is to peace the monster, hide, use smoke bombs, cast invisibility or run away and come back. Do anything that will break the target between you and the monster.

Some special monsters (primarily named creatures or bosses) have different strategies and will often switch targets depending on who's easiest to kill or who's lowest on health. Dreadhorn's a prime example of knowing who to kill. Dreadhorn will often fire off a finishing spell while tanking 2 other creatures or he'll lock on to you and hold a grudge on one of his attackers.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15355

[Tugex]

Okay, yeah, makes sense when you put it like that. But when this happens always, I'm starting to doubt Cause the feeling I'm getting is, life has been made hard for tamers really artificially. Once inna while the mob retargeting to you is all good and makes fighting fun, but when you can expect it, it sucks. Like a bad horror movie when you just know something is gonna pop up and scare the shit out of half nekkid girl who is gonna scream like there's no tomorrow, it is a bit lame.

Tho this is just my opinion and probably I just fail at something But its like... skeletons for me and my ru from now on

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15356

[Dumples]

It makes the fight more interesting from a certain perspective, but at the same time, it does make healing a pet hard to do sometimes. I have to use magery to heal my pets. I don't even bother with bandages during a fight. Not sure if that was the intent, but that's how I do it.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15357

[Plastic Man]

Yea, hafta use magery here, on other shards/back in the day, you could sick your pet on something then just stand right be hind it and vet for the whole fight, but here on Valor, we like tamers to prove their mettle and see if they can heal their pets and themselves all at the same time. Super AI certainly makes life on Valor ALOT more interesting, and IMO enteraining. I mean with one of my Holy War Horses or my AW + Mare (Yes I still have an old one) I can pretty much run through anywhere, BUT its not easy and I have been known to have to bring in my mage to res myself because my pets have finished a fight but I didnt pull through.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15358

[Tugex]

true words, aye. but if i wanna fight mobs hand to hand, i whip out my macer... its good that they target you now and again (as i've mentioned before), but they just seem to ignore the huge hiryu hitting em in the weak spot, and concentrating on the scrawny elf girl playing banjo i do believe this kinda misses the point of taming profession by miles. or its just me, probably so. but id like to think im not that shitty a player

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15359

[Death]

It makes the fight more interesting from a certain perspective, but at the same time, it does make healing a pet hard to do sometimes. I have to use magery to heal my pets. I don't even bother with bandages during a fight. Not sure if that was the intent, but that's how I do it.

Well, we were thinking of giving a healing boost to bandages and a distance based check for magery so healing up close works better for your pet than healing from afar (Naturally, it makes sense that if you're up close and putting yourself in the path of danger, there should be some advantage). Not many of the tamers would appreciate that though.

Basically we were thinking from this perspective:

1) Up close healing heals a lot more damage but you are closer to the creature doing the damage (This affects both magery and bandage healing but bandage healing would still heal more than magery simply because of such a low tile range). Also, to incorporate the fact that you are right there in the battle with your pet and prone to damage already (Area spells, accidently getting in too close, etc), we might be able to reduce the chance of target switching so it's rather low.

2) Distance healing heals, but the father away you are from the target, the less damage you will heal. If you're a good 10 tiles away healing, chances are it's not going to heal as well as if you're standing next to your pet, then you'll be getting almost double the healing damage in.

The basis of the target switching was to add some spice to battles, where you don't always expect the same outcome. Maybe when fighting that next balron, he decides to go for the archer in the distance instead of continuing with the guy meleeing it.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15360

[Death]

true words, aye. but if i wanna fight mobs hand to hand, i whip out my macer... its good that they target you now and again (as i've mentioned before), but they just seem to ignore the huge hiryu hitting em in the weak spot, and concentrating on the scrawny elf girl playing banjo i do believe this kinda misses the point of taming profession by miles. or its just me, probably so. but id like to think im not that shitty a player

When a creature target switches, they take a liking to that person for a certain amount of seconds. This means that they are more likely to ignore that pet or ignore anyone one else trying to damage it while they make a mad dash towards you. When those seconds have elapsed, the monster loses interest and goes for the next thing it can find or attack.

As mentioned before, spells like invisibility, and dispel evil are your friend. Do anything you can think of to break the target between you and the monster. If you're not a mage you can wait till invisibility potions are in the game as anyone can use those when they get into some nasty situations.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15361

[dprantl]

So you are saying you will allow bandage healing from a distance? Because right now with my tamer, the only time I ever use bandages is to res pets. I don't think I've used a bandage to heal pets in battle for months. About magery heals healing less the further away you are, I think that's a bad idea. This could then be applied to any spell in general.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15363

[Dumples]

So you are saying you will allow bandage healing from a distance? Because right now with my tamer, the only time I ever use bandages is to res pets. I don't think I've used a bandage to heal pets in battle for months. About magery heals healing less the further away you are, I think that's a bad idea. This could then be applied to any spell in general.

Yeah I agree for the most part there. Make bandages heal more, or faster if you want, but don't make magery healing range sensetive. That would be like making archery cause less damage from further away. I doubt archers would like something like that.

I am all for making bandages much more useful in the way of speed or amount healed though. Maybe even add to the monster AI to be less likely to attack you if you are actively using a bandage at the moment it decides to check for a new target or something.

Another alternative is to improve the "Kill" command for pets. Make it so that if a tamer uses the kill command that it grabs focus of a mob back towards the pet instead of the tamer.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15365

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I see the distance thing being an issue with vetting. I'll have to think up of something to correct that. The whole idea with mobs switching targets was actually due to the fact that lot of pets don't even need to be vetted so tamer just stands back, goes afk and solos dungeons. (ex: swoop and such) So now tamers are forced to also protect themselves and not just go in a corner. But this also makes vet useless so kinda double edged sword. I'll have to think up of something.

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[Death]

Yeah I agree for the most part there. Make bandages heal more, or faster if you want. Maybe even add to the monster AI to be less likely to attack you if you are actively using a bandage at the moment it decides to check for a new target or something.

That could be done.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15367

[Death]

Yeah I see the distance thing being an issue with vetting. I'll have to think up of something to correct that. The whole idea with mobs switching targets was actually due to the fact that lot of pets don't even need to be vetted so tamer just stands back, goes afk and solos dungeons. (ex: swoop and such) So now tamers are forced to also protect themselves and not just go in a corner. But this also makes vet useless so kinda double edged sword. I'll have to think up of something.

Could give more benefits to vetting such as larger heals. So it's a risk going next to your pet to heal it but it'll heal a heck of a lot better than magery/close wounds or other spells. Magery is best if you want to keep your distance but it won't heal as much as bandages.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15368

[Tugex]

my vote is gonna go to makin monsters less hostile towards the tamer. doesnt matter how fast the bandages are if im going to be running away from the monster seems reasonable cause most of the monsters are pretty tough, and take a lot of time to kill. and yeah, its boring standing next to it, and heal continously, but its damned impossible to run away from it and try to heal. gotta find some perfect median then, i suppose. but isnt that the dilemma always ?

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15369

[Death]

my vote is gonna go to makin monsters less hostile towards the tamer. doesnt matter how fast the bandages are if im going to be running away from the monster seems reasonable cause most of the monsters are pretty tough, and take a lot of time to kill. and yeah, its boring standing next to it, and heal continously, but its damned impossible to run away from it and try to heal. gotta find some perfect median then, i suppose. but isnt that the dilemma always ?

Can't just have monsters non-agressive to the tamer. That's no fun and naturally, you'd think monsters would have enough intelligence to know that the pet's obeying the tamer's orders so if the tamer dies, then they'd have the upper hand.

Healing's not too bad. Just make sure you aren't going in with tissue paper armor with massive luck and sacrificing your resists. A tamer should have resists, even if you got to sacrifice a bit of luck to get it (Trust me, if you've lost that 40 luck to give yourself 15 fire resist to survive that next fireball, you're not missing out that much). Not to mention runic sewing kits can make you decent luck items and at the same time, give you the resists you need.

Running away from a monster should be done as soon as you can. Don't stand and wait for the combo if you know you can't take it. Another thing people forget about are potions. Carry a couple of greater heal and slap on some EP items to increase the effectiveness. If you get in a bind or need to heal yourself AND your pet, drink a few potions. Greater cures are also effective if you get poisoned by something wicked.

Our goal is not to make a class super hard, it's to make it a challenge at times but within reason. Finding the medium is the hardest thing to do. If anyone has any other suggestions to creating a happy medium for tamers we'd like to hear them.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15370

[Dumples]

If anyone has any other suggestions to creating a happy medium for tamers we'd like to hear them.

I like my idea of adding an extra function to the Kill command. It can be used to intimidate a monster into attacking it instead of the tamer. It doesn't even have to be 100%. Give it a small chance to fail, or use a scaling formula that makes the chance for the kill comand to take focus scale up to 100% based on taming lore and vet combined.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15371

[Plastic Man]

Not to mention if you have to spam All kill then there is that chance even your bonded pets will decide they hate you and go wild so you have to burn a PBD for No reason or wait another seven days before using your only weapon.

Or Maybe thats just a randon chance to lose your wondefully happy pets and create a new gold sink in the form of foricng people to buy more PBDs.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15374

[Dumples]

Eh.. This isn't really something to go crazy over. I see some potential, but I don't really see anything as broken yet.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15379

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

Eh.. This isn't really something to go crazy over. I see some potential, but I don't really see anything as broken yet.

it happened to plastic, I seen it. and he wasnt even using commands at all. Just went from wonderful to wild.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15386

[Plastic Man]

Yeah, I'm still a little bitter towards that O.o

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15397

[Dumples]

Oh I wasn't talking about the losing a pet issue. I'd be mad about that too. I'm more talking about the AI retargeting towards the tamer making it harder to use bandages in battle. I can see that being a pain, but isn't entirely a show stopper for most.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:2402, old post ID:15400