Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Summoner and Pets

    • 1 posts
    January 26, 2023 5:00 AM PST

     

    Any update on when they are going to implement and test pets?  Pets are not easy to implement due to aggro thru walls, pathing issues etc and it cannot be a last minute job otherwise the whole pet system will be a failure.  I hope they really do their research on the matter and come up with a solid system that is working and make pet classes viable and fun.

    • 810 posts
    January 26, 2023 5:35 AM PST

    We are waiting on all the network stuff to be done for this to be possible.  The reason they are waiting on the pets is so they don't have to reinvent the wheel too many times.  Once the networking is in place they can build the pets to work on that specifically and hopefully be better optimized from the get go.  

     

    So far the pets could be added without lagging the people into oblivion, but there are still clear problems unique to the pets/pet classes.  For instance there are still zonelines even if they are seamless.  The pets and the NPCs hunting down players need to be able to pass from one into the other as well.

    Pathing through walls and the like is often the exact same as virtually all NPCs.  Any work they do to stop that would be automatically applied to pets. 

     

    I honestly want to see the Summoner elementals more than I want to see the various races though.  I am real curious how the elementals will change their looks over time / levels / gear.

     

    I sadly can't see any game doing pets better than Eve did.  The drones were great.  Variety of drones and their different abilities between the sizes and the targets you were going after.  Long range options vs support vs combat vs debuffing vs mining.  Pets can do so much more than just attack blindly without ruining the game. 


    This post was edited by Jobeson at January 26, 2023 5:44 AM PST
    • 612 posts
    January 26, 2023 4:05 PM PST

    I am also very excited to see the Arcamentals. Summoner is definitely a class I'm planning to try out early on.

    As for pathing issues and agro'ing through walls and such. I would hope that VR has learned from past games and simply make Pet's non-agro to all enemies unless they actually enter into combat with them. So a Pet who is taking an unplanned path while trying to follow you won't pull enemies onto you. This would likely be tied into the faction system, as Arcamentals and other pets would likely be on a neutral faction that isn't hated by anybody.

    • 810 posts
    January 26, 2023 5:03 PM PST

    I disagree on pets being non agro.  It really shows someone is good at their class to manage the pet perfectly without question and random players who just charge through.  It also gives pets more variety if say the air pet can go invisible or sneak similar to a rogue, that is now a great utility to have if someone is bad at controlling their pet.  Being situationally aware enough to get you and your pet past danger is a clear skill. 

    I say that hoping we don't have massive pathing issues where NPCs veer off doubling back and taking a massive exploitable loop rather than walking up a 3 cm hill.  I hope the climb skill in general will allow pets and NPCs in Pantheon to have far better pathing than we have seen in other games.  Remembering to perfectly control your pet as the group crouch walks past a deadly threat or completes some sort of jump puzzle is a great thing and as important as remembering to put out your torch.  Making the game harder in ways that logically make sense is the dynamic gameplay I hope Pantheon brings us. 

     

    I love the non combat gameplay fantasy games can bring.  I hope heavy armor is often louder and has a larger agro radius for auditory detection.  Lights should augment agro range in dark places when you are now seen perfectly from far away.  I want utility spells all over the place to help groups through certain areas.  A cleric casting some sort of light aura the group needs to stay in range of to bypass all the damage of a deadly magical darkness. 

    • 2138 posts
    January 27, 2023 7:32 AM PST

    Jobeson said:

    I disagree on pets being non agro.  It really shows someone is good at their class to manage the pet perfectly without question and random players who just charge through.  It also gives pets more variety if say the air pet can go invisible or sneak similar to a rogue, that is now a great utility to have if someone is bad at controlling their pet.  Being situationally aware enough to get you and your pet past danger is a clear skill. 

    I say that hoping we don't have massive pathing issues where NPCs veer off doubling back and taking a massive exploitable loop rather than walking up a 3 cm hill.  I hope the climb skill in general will allow pets and NPCs in Pantheon to have far better pathing than we have seen in other games.  Remembering to perfectly control your pet as the group crouch walks past a deadly threat or completes some sort of jump puzzle is a great thing and as important as remembering to put out your torch.  Making the game harder in ways that logically make sense is the dynamic gameplay I hope Pantheon brings us. 

     

    Im glad you brought up management and pathing in the same breath as that was a thing. But it got me theorycrafting: what if Pets were NOT assesed due to their abilities but rather to their acclimation or elemental properties. Meaning, a water pet would dart towards the closest water path and swim up it relative to the summoners position, too far and it wont, but if the water source is within a certain range of the summoner? it will- with your aggro as mentioned. So the summoner walks straight, turns left and water elemental senses the tributary to the right, water elemental goes right and start swimming up that tributary away from the summoner and following the tributary path to where that path may get close to wherever the summoner ends up from going left even to the point of doubling back and coming back down the tributary to catch up to the summoner if the range of the summoners area of existance deems that a better route. An air pet can float or in water be inclined to rise to the surface like a bubble if not pulled down from time to time. IF there is alot of climbing an earth type pet may be more appropriate as it will easily find purchase on the rock face from which itself was hewn (born and bred in the briar patch). Likewise an earth pet could navigate lava easily enough but a fire pet- although a known loose cannon-might become imbued with force or strengthened, stronger or better than it is in a hot environment or even near a forge relative to the heatsource, even a campfire and as far as pathing may find it self drawn to those heat sources like a moth to a flame. 

    • 3852 posts
    January 27, 2023 9:09 AM PST

    "Making the game harder in ways that logically make sense is the dynamic gameplay I hope Pantheon brings us."

     

    Agreed - but this does not necessarily produce the result you argue for.  A pet looking directly at an enemy in front of it and then deciding to reach it by going off to the side and through 5 rooms pulling 57 enemies in the process is not something that "logically makes sense" - obviously. 

    Logically there are various possibilities. One - pathing is always perfect. Since games with enormously greater budgets and far more developers (note I do not say *better* developers) have failed to reach this ideal, it is unlikely that Pantheon will. Two- spit happens. Every now and then, hopefully not too often, a pet will wipe the group through no fault of the master who reasonably assumed the pet would go straight to the enemy not off on a sightseeing tour. Three - the game recognizes that pets enjoy sightseeing and has a mechanism to prevent this resulting in a wipe. Such as enemies not attacking the wayward pet. 

    But even if these were the only options, they do not necessarily *preclude* the result you argue for either. The burden can be, and perhaps shoulld be, on the master to be ready to instantly dismiss the pet if it heads off in the wrong direction.

    Almost all of us have heard the saying "be careful what you wish for - you may get it". In a game where a pet's master can do wonderfully interesting things with the pet if he or she is skilled and alert but can also easily wipe the group if he or she is not skilled and constantly alert we are likely to see "Looking for group members - any class without a pet". Pet masters will find it quite hard to get into any PUG.


    This post was edited by dorotea at January 27, 2023 9:11 AM PST
    • 810 posts
    January 27, 2023 11:45 PM PST

    dorotea said:

    But even if these were the only options, they do not necessarily *preclude* the result you argue for either. The burden can be, and perhaps shoulld be, on the master to be ready to instantly dismiss the pet if it heads off in the wrong direction.

    Almost all of us have heard the saying "be careful what you wish for - you may get it". In a game where a pet's master can do wonderfully interesting things with the pet if he or she is skilled and alert but can also easily wipe the group if he or she is not skilled and constantly alert we are likely to see "Looking for group members - any class without a pet". Pet masters will find it quite hard to get into any PUG.

    I personally have the pet back off ability spammed well before I get to the dismiss option :D Two dedicated keys vital to any pet user with a bit of control.  Pantheon also references giving summoners a break agro ability to get out of combat which could be helpful if you are just really slow at pet control.

    As for the PUG situation, if the pathing is broken enough to warrant not having pets then I need to remind you its not just pet classes that are broken.  Serious pathing problems create broken NPCs too.  If the zone you are in has a high chance for NPCs you shoot or attempt to LOS to randomly loop around the dungeon and train a party it won't just be pet classes having a bad time. 

    Classes need skill checks.  I can see a number of skill checks potentially near blacklisting PUG players from certain roles or zones if enough people are bad at the same thing within the game. I look forward to the misfit toys problem. 

    PUG monks not understanding how to FD pull because its not as easy and straight forward as the rogue. 

    PUG bards not wanted because they don't twist songs to keep them up. 

    PUG wizards not having threat management

    PUG warriors not knowing how to multi target tank

    PUG rangers trying to only be ranged and being low dps

    PUG druids not being clerics... what were they thinking?

    • 3852 posts
    January 28, 2023 7:38 AM PST

    Any bad player can wipe any group. Nothing is foolproof - fools are so ...creative.

    Some classes by their very nature will be harder to play than other classes. A very good player will let a group do things that otherwise would not be possible. An average player will produce worse results than an average player with a more simple class. A bad player ...well I don't want to even think about that. Depending on how a summoner class is designed it can be one of the hardest classes to play or one of the easiest. 

    I emphatically agree that some classes should be significantly harder to play - or significantly easier to play - than others. I have no opinion yet on what classes should be hard or easy other than the obvious. Healing should not be very difficult in general. Tanking should not be very difficult in general. In MMOs it is harder to get healers and tanks for a group than damage dealers and if only an exceptional player can do a good job this problem will be exacerbated. Note that I refer to the difficulty of doing a capable job. Of course, there should be room for a skilled player to do much more than a capable job and thus to add far more than average value to a group.

    A related issue is what damage a weak or merely average player can do to his or her group. If a poor player will merely produce less damage or lower healing or less ability to control enemies - this can be compensated for. Most obviously - by focusing on easier content. Since about half of all players will be below average any game *must* allow a lot of room for below average players to function and be useful in groups. But if a below average player is 50% likely to wipe a group - now the stakes go up. Quite a lot if death means far more than in typical MMOs.

    • 141 posts
    January 28, 2023 9:24 AM PST

    If there is a 50% chance that each person of a group is a mediocre player and "if a below average player is 50% likely to wipe a group" then the game will be hard for pickup groups :)

    "TRAIN INC !!"

    • 810 posts
    January 28, 2023 8:42 PM PST

    Grobobos said:

    If there is a 50% chance that each person of a group is a mediocre player and "if a below average player is 50% likely to wipe a group" then the game will be hard for pickup groups :)

    "TRAIN INC !!"

    This is why content difficulty is so relevant.  PUGs for the most difficult content should be suicide missions.  If Pantheon is balanced to allow your average PUG to safely deal with high con dungeons all of the people looking for a difficult game will end up quitting.  If pantheon is tuned for your average PUG to be doing safer content a few levels below theirs it leaves a place for people looking for a challenge to find one. 

    Hopefully we also avoid the MMO trope of 5 levels higher than you is a fight, but 6 levels higher than you and the mobs gain 50% damage reduction and crit chance. 

     

    Going back to pets though, I am not worried pathing will be that bad until we see it be that bad.  I believe mobs climbing will make the pathing problems way simpler in the long run...  Add pet climbing animations onto the list of things I am excited to see.