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Red Squirrel wrote:See thing is we try to balance out templates. Right now tamers have it too easy so basically everyone just needs to make a tamer, making all other templates not worthwhile. So we need to make taming "harder" by disabling the use of cheap tactics such as hiding behind a wall while pet does all the work.

In the end its more fun for everyone.

But that said I will take a look at the values and see if I can tweak the system.

I'll gather some information on it while you work out the values, then we can test it out. I recommend some kind of algorithm that reduces the target switching % as the number of hostiles increases.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21739

Another problem to take into account is the overall ignorance of pets with advanced AI. Invising while full health, teleporting away for no reason, and the very annoying habbit of walking to the north side of all mobs they fight (this is mainly aws and crystaline dragons from what ive noticed).

All of these things leave the tamer open for attack as it puts them outside the "safe zone".

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21740

Shaggy wrote:Another problem to take into account is the overall ignorance of pets with advanced AI. Invising while full health, teleporting away for no reason, and the very annoying habbit of walking to the north side of all mobs they fight (this is mainly aws and crystaline dragons from what ive noticed).

All of these things leave the tamer open for attack as it puts them outside the "safe zone".

That's a very good point as well Shaggy. The AI is the same for both pets and monsters (Which isn't a bad thing in some cases) but yea, the teleporting away thing and invising at full health are probably things they shouldn't be doing.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21741

First i think you shouldnt argue about how pets react in reallife. This is a game and we are talking about dragons, or wyrms.

As long as it fits into the genre it should be allowed and I dont see that even the usual roleplayer would say that it is destroying his fun if he can (or can not) invis while his pet is still fighting.

So the thing you have to think about is what are the pro's and what the con's just from the game-design / balancing perspective.

If there are people doing something bad and "exploting" a system you have always to think about:
-How many people do you harm with your solution that DONT exploit. And is there maybe a different solution to solve this problem without annoying players who do not exploit the system.

You should also think about the players who aren't veterans and know every tactic and are not perfect players.

Just think about the people whos best pet is a drake or something like that. There are more players then the "hardcore"-player. People who are happy when they take out a bunch of orcs with their pet, hitting and running and hiding behind walls.

just my 2 cents...

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21743

The gms are smart people, but they seem to get challenge and frustration mixed up.

A good example of challenge is just barely being able to keep your pet alive with a mix of bandages and healing spells. At the end of the battle you say "whew, that was a close one". Or if you die, at least you can believe that with a different strategy, a different pet, or just more irl luck that you can defeat whatever you were trying to kill.

Frustration on the other hand, is saying "WTF is my pet doing? It stopped attacking and its running for the hills!" "OMG, I was only uninvis for 2 seconds and now I am dead... this sucks"

Another example of frustration is, "Oh great, blood oath... OoooOoOOOoo"

Or, "What the hell, I have been mining for an hour and only found 1 valorite vein. 2 ingots... only 298 more till I can try to complete the quest"

How about, "Goddamn liches, stand and fight. Don't just run around casting poison strike on random monsters!"

"ughhh, another T2A undead champ... No thanks, I don't want to even try it. Might as well not even go into T2a for the next few days, since it takes forever for the champs to reset."

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21748

I'm trying to reproduce the pets acting weird thing. So far no luck. I'm using a hiryu against a DF, it rarely switched target to me, and pet listened ok and kept killing, while I was vetting. Was not using barding skills. I died a few times from wither so went to rez, and it was fine there too.

I still did not eat anything as I did not notice the time, so I'm going to go get something to eat and continue to test.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21758

For those experiencing issues want to shed some insight on what monsters you frequently go kill (Or dungeons/areas you hunt are good too).

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21759

Doom, all peerless, wrong, destard, Demitels... pretty much everything as we are all over the map all the time.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21760

Demitels are anti tamer - they're designed that way. Use melee, or archer or other template against them. In fact they're pretty much all designed for various templates. Crystal demon: archer, blood beast: archer/mage, almincrus: melee seems to work best, malkilus, mage only, black hole pretty much anything etc...

Peerless and some bosses have a bigger chance to turn as well but not as high as demitels, again, thats by design. Bosses are suppose to require extra effort.

Stuff like balrons on the other hand should not be turning to the tamer much. So if they are I'll want to look into it.

I'm also tweaking the LOS system a bit, but really based on my testing its not that off. If you play a tamer normally the pet acts normally.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21761

Shaggy wrote:Doom, all peerless, wrong, destard, Demitels... pretty much everything as we are all over the map all the time.

Demitels and Peerless have target switching that's affected on all mobiles in the area it finds hostile (So tamers, archers, meleers, mages they all turn on them randomly, especially lady melisande because of her putrid nausea attack). Peerless are naturally like that, where they can switch at any moment.

Normal creatures as well as mini bosses might do it sometimes, but not all the time.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21762

I think the problem is that pets are too powerful, and to fix that we made it so creatures bypass the pet. but tamers hid which was a dbl win. strong petas and u dont get hurt. wayyy stronger than anything else dexxer mage etc. so to fix this we took out the invis affect. i think we should allow invising to heal but weaken the pets. Also, for anyone who says "u can do any of them so that point is invalid" the only way i can deffend myself is through an example of a first person shooter. Call of Duty 4. you can use any gun that anyone else can, but there is still a largely complained problem about certain guns being FAR superior to others (P90) and the point that comes across is "yes, you can use any template, but why have any templates if one is super leet and the others are only avg?" thats why equality is important.

but think about how lertting invis work properly and weakening the pets would affect things. sounds good to me. got a bad dog bite (two actually) on my hand and DAMN does typing this hurt :/

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Mosin wrote:but there is still a largely complained problem about certain guns being FAR superior to others (P90) and the point that comes across is "yes, you can use any template, but why have any templates if one is super leet and the others are only avg?" thats why equality is important.

Think you hit the nail on the head. (don't hit so hard next time, you split the 2X6 plank) That's exactly my point in balancing even pvm. if one template is 100 times better and easier then any other then why have the others?

Also the pets being too strong is in fact a good point. Again, the issue is the AWs. We should have never made them tamable or should of at least gave them the stat drop right off the bat.

When we create the 5 slot dragons and wipe the AWs I think it will help create this balance we are looking for. The AWs are one of the major issues.

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We also never see any pure melee chars (Minus archers) in pvm, coincidence?

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I think that LoS has nerfed taming to the point that it would be senseless to use a pet and we will be pushed to go for the new leet template which from our testing seems to be the necro leecher, because there will always be a leet template and some people are always gonna say it's unfair. If this was like OSI I wouldnt need to run multi clients because the mob doesnt break aggro off of your pet, I rarely have to invis...If we are going to really even this up let a tamer wear a slayer tally and it give additional damage to the mob he is fighting with his pet, or give his pet leeching abilities like dexxers weps do for them. It doesnt matter how much SSI, DI or SDI I build into my suit, a fully trained pet still will do the same damage, unlike dexxers that choose to go hand to hand and dress accordingly and constantly tweaking their suits or changing up their weps for more of everything.

Lastly, whats wrong with acquiring loot? We play UO just to acquire loot, so that we can suit up characters for other areas of the game, like factions for instance. The idea that tamers have it easy is balanced by the fact that there is a drop system in place and everyone has a chance. I've been fully lucked out and watched an archer go thru three rounds of doom with me and drop an arty at each DF while I ended the night with nothing. As much as I would like to see LoS completely ripped out of the code, I understand there was an attempt to balance (make more challenging ) the ability to aquire items on the shard, but it seems the scales have completely tipped the other direction now.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21769

It's the ability to get loot while AFK that is wrong. Without these AI changes it is easy to do it AFK because pets are too powerful.

Also on OSI its much much harder then here. Mobs constantly switch targets more then they do here.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21770

Friar wrote:I think that LoS has nerfed taming to the point that it would be senseless to use a pet and we will be pushed to go for the new leet template which from our testing seems to be the necro leecher, because there will always be a leet template and some people are always gonna say it's unfair. If this was like OSI I wouldnt need to run multi clients because the mob doesnt break aggro off of your pet, I rarely have to invis...If we are going to really even this up let a tamer wear a slayer tally and it give additional damage to the mob he is fighting with his pet, or give his pet leeching abilities like dexxers weps do for them. It doesnt matter how much SSI, DI or SDI I build into my suit, a fully trained pet still will do the same damage, unlike dexxers that choose to go hand to hand and dress accordingly and constantly tweaking their suits or changing up their weps for more of everything.

Lastly, whats wrong with acquiring loot? We play UO just to acquire loot, so that we can suit up characters for other areas of the game, like factions for instance. The idea that tamers have it easy is balanced by the fact that there is a drop system in place and everyone has a chance. I've been fully lucked out and watched an archer go thru three rounds of doom with me and drop an arty at each DF while I ended the night with nothing. As much as I would like to see LoS completely ripped out of the code, I understand there was an attempt to balance (make more challenging ) the ability to aquire items on the shard, but it seems the scales have completely tipped the other direction now.

well i did mention bonuses towards tamers as well. like fixing the invis issue. which makes tamers fine. believe it or not, having to run away to save yourself from death does happen to other temps even if not to tamers. i like the idea of gaunts being done (effectively) without all tamers. for example: i was asked to make a tamer to do a gaunt run to test into guild. why a tamer :/ why i can't i use another temp?

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Seer Death wrote:We also never see any pure melee chars (Minus archers) in pvm, coincidence?

Lies, I solo Gaunt for at least an hour or two a week on Wolverine. Plus I've been known to solo Parax with him when I'm really bored. The biggest problem with melee is when all the new damage calcs and such were introduced somehow there were suddenly a bunch of mobs that just straight rape you melee so meleers just kinda got a kick to the groin. But inspite of your belief that no one still plays them you are wrong, because I do at least.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21772

Mosin wrote:

Friar wrote:I think that LoS has nerfed taming to the point that it would be senseless to use a pet and we will be pushed to go for the new leet template which from our testing seems to be the necro leecher, because there will always be a leet template and some people are always gonna say it's unfair. If this was like OSI I wouldnt need to run multi clients because the mob doesnt break aggro off of your pet, I rarely have to invis...If we are going to really even this up let a tamer wear a slayer tally and it give additional damage to the mob he is fighting with his pet, or give his pet leeching abilities like dexxers weps do for them. It doesnt matter how much SSI, DI or SDI I build into my suit, a fully trained pet still will do the same damage, unlike dexxers that choose to go hand to hand and dress accordingly and constantly tweaking their suits or changing up their weps for more of everything.

Lastly, whats wrong with acquiring loot? We play UO just to acquire loot, so that we can suit up characters for other areas of the game, like factions for instance. The idea that tamers have it easy is balanced by the fact that there is a drop system in place and everyone has a chance. I've been fully lucked out and watched an archer go thru three rounds of doom with me and drop an arty at each DF while I ended the night with nothing. As much as I would like to see LoS completely ripped out of the code, I understand there was an attempt to balance (make more challenging ) the ability to aquire items on the shard, but it seems the scales have completely tipped the other direction now.

well i did mention bonuses towards tamers as well. like fixing the invis issue. which makes tamers fine. believe it or not, having to run away to save yourself from death does happen to other temps even if not to tamers. i like the idea of gaunts being done (effectively) without all tamers. for example: i was asked to make a tamer to do a gaunt run to test into guild. why a tamer :/ why i can't i use another temp?

You can use whatever template you want, it was suggested that you make a tamer but not demanded. I have an archer, a meleer, a necro, and 2 tamers in gauntlet and can and do use all of them for it.

Hell JLA used to go to gauntlet with just my necro-tamer and one AW for a tank and had like 5 or 6 players playing archers or mages and we'd run gaunt easily like that. Which from the sounds of all this talk in this thread is probably going to be how everyone runs gaunt from now on. Just gotta have your mages cross heal your one tamer a bunch so that they can stay alive.

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Teamwork. Its what UO is about.

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Plastic Man wrote:

Seer Death wrote:We also never see any pure melee chars (Minus archers) in pvm, coincidence?

Lies, I solo Gaunt for at least an hour or two a week on Wolverine. Plus I've been known to solo Parax with him when I'm really bored. The biggest problem with melee is when all the new damage calcs and such were introduced somehow there were suddenly a bunch of mobs that just straight rape you melee so meleers just kinda got a kick to the groin. But inspite of your belief that no one still plays them you are wrong, because I do at least.

5 or 6 meleers VS 38 tamers, I think there's a bit of a problem there (and don't tell me people prefer playing a tamer, I don't buy it.) There's a reason why it's not a popular candidate and I'm sure it has to do with the damage that's being done to meleers. So the scale tipped in the direction of tamers and archers waaaaay more than it should be.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21779

Seer Death wrote:

Plastic Man wrote:

Seer Death wrote:We also never see any pure melee chars (Minus archers) in pvm, coincidence?

Lies, I solo Gaunt for at least an hour or two a week on Wolverine. Plus I've been known to solo Parax with him when I'm really bored. The biggest problem with melee is when all the new damage calcs and such were introduced somehow there were suddenly a bunch of mobs that just straight rape you melee so meleers just kinda got a kick to the groin. But inspite of your belief that no one still plays them you are wrong, because I do at least.

5 or 6 meleers VS 38 tamers, I think there's a bit of a problem there (and don't tell me people prefer playing a tamer, I don't buy it.) There's a reason why it's not a popular candidate and I'm sure it has to do with the damage that's being done to meleers. So the scale tipped in the direction of tamers and archers waaaaay more than it should be.

Here is the reason. of those 5-6 Meleers all of them I'm willing to bet use one of the 80-100 LL weps. Like I know I use a 100/80/100 leech BH kryss. Red uses a 100/100/100 BH Kata. You use a 100 LL sword. Of those 5-6 Meleers all of them are in 70s or near 70s suits with mad mods on them.

Now of those 38 tamers, I'll be willing to bet that MAYBE 2-3 of them use a 70s suit. I'll be willing to bet that only half of them IF that are artied out. Most tamers have a fairly high luck LRC suit that you can build from crafting and enhancing within a week or two. The suits for the meleers all I'm willing to bet took far more time and effort to build, but in order to sucessfully play a meleer in UO you have to have such a suit.

In spite of your argument that its too easy for tamers I think the point you are missing is that its not that its too easy for tamers to PvM. Its to hard and time consuming to build a suit to do it as well on other templates (The exception is maybe an archer). This doesn't mean tamers need to have their life made into a living hell, have their pets nerfed, and have their game ruined. Maybe the problem of people not playing other classes is because it is so hard to do so effectively that everyone chooses to play a tamer.

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This is true, but in order to raise an undervalued class, you must lower an overvalued class to bring them down to the same level. The bar that was set for tamers was way too high and every other class had to suffer from it. Now lowering the bar isn't as easy as it was setting it higher.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21795

I think you are honestly doing it back asswards. Maybe you should look at how hard it is to effectivly play a meleer and look at the suits of the few of us who do it and make it easier for more people to create and use one without getting slaughtered.

I mean honestly. Taming is one of the back bone professions of PvM and always has been. It is where most vets start to build up an item base to suit other characters. This has ALWAYs been so. The Reason this has ALWAYS been so is because it is easier to get a tamer going to the point where they can fight most bosses than any other class. If you destroy the back bone of how UO has been for 10 years, which is a fairly proven way, then you compromise the game most of us love.

I am not saying that you should not try to make UO better and more balanced. I am saying you need to be careful that in your search for individual balance you don't lose sight of the big picture of what UO is. It is a game, it is meant to be fun, if you make it so their is no class you can bootstrap yourself with you will destroy this fun. And as a result people will leave. Others will show up for a few days, and leave. I think that much of the owrk that has gone into to "balancing" tamers is threatening to do just that.

Balance is something you should strive for in small steps, not large changes, this is something you learn if you ever study martial arts. A small movement is far easier to rebalance than a large change in stance. You have drastically altered the balance here, and what we are seeing is everyone flailing about trying to figure out this new balance and not liking that it was done TOO them. This change threw much of the playbase off balance and people don't like that. If it had been smaller steps then perhaps we could have found the middle ground without a riot, but as it is, a riot is exactly what you have on your hands. I know of multiple people planning or thinking about quitting over these changes. And if enough of them leave, more will follow. Just be careful guys, you put so much work into this chard I wouldn't want to see one change undo all that (And I'm not saying it will, but I also think you need to try to approach this from other angles and not just stick to your one angle that you you will modify it until its "right")

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3399, old post ID:21798

I think what most people don't realize is that if you play a tamer normally while actually looking at the screen and actively playing rather then shoving the tamer in a corner and going AFK, the AI changes that were made are not even noticeable. So those who are greatly affected are most likely the ones constantly staying invised or hiding behind walls to let pet do work on the other side.

The AFK thing, that's a banable offense, but rather then ban, we just fixed it through code.

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The whole afk thing im guessing is geared towards me for using two hide tamers and a discord tamer. Its not considered afk anywhere i have played that allows multiple clients as long as you are active on one of those clients... seems here it might be.

To the player base, sorry for comming in and getting your tamers nerfed and then stepping out for the most part... I may jump back over time to time to see how things are and to play around, also to refresh accounts.

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