Posted on Stratics' UO U.Hall

Summoning Pet Balls, Animal Form, and Pets
02/26/08 07:03 AM

Hello Everyone,

Just letting you know we have been reading your feedback on summoning pet balls, animal form, and pets.

Some of the suggestions I've seen target reducing effectiveness of one or more of these three things.

At the moment, I'm more inclined to look at the summoning pet balls first and see if we want to make any changes to it. One of the main suggestions I have seen that has possibilities is to require a reuse timer for the summoning pet balls, and perhaps don't allow them to be used while in animal form.

Let's try and only discuss pet summoning ball specific changes in this thread. I'd like to gather specific feedback on them.

Thanks all!

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Designer, Ultima Online
EA Mythic

Leurocian has been busy with this thread. Every orange comment is his unless stated otherwise -- Ally

----------------------------

A timer would depend on wether the timer was before or after the pet was summoned as if it is after they still get a free hit. Not particularly a fan of timers either.

-----------------------------------------

I read a post where a casting timer equivalent to 7th or 8th circle may be one possibility, and then perhaps a reuse timer after the pet is summoned. That may address the free hit you bring up.

If we did decide to go this after, how long do you think the reuse timer should be?

------------------------------------------

Have you seen the poll I did on the subject? There is quite a lot of useful information in the thread.

Here's the link If you didn't.

--------------------------------------------

No I haven't. Thank you. I'll look at this.

--------------------------

Reuse timer = Good idea 30 seconds or so to be able to resummon pet

--------------------------

That may be a good start to test.

----------------------------

Message displaying a tamer is summoning a pet = Great idea

---------------------------------

That has possibilities.

-----------------------------------

Inability to use pet ball while in animal form = Great idea

------------------------------


This seems to be a strong suggestion that specifically targets the current imbalance in PvP, with minimal impact in PvM.

------------------------------------------

Inablilty to use pet ball in entire T2A area = Great idea

------------------------------------------

This suggestion I'll have to explore more and see what the team thinks.

-------------------------------------

Increase of # of charges it takes to summon pet = Good idea

------------------------------------


May or may not be necessary if we do what I've presented in the original thread. Definitely open to further discussion though.

---------------------------------------------------

Delays in pets arrival = bad idea
Delays in pets listening to master = bad idea

-----------------------------------------------

Yeah, these suggestions don't seem as strong as the others. So I tend to agree here.

Thanks for the feedback so far!


Just my opinions of course.

-----------------------------

• Message displaying a tamer is summoning a pet

We already have that - grey screen with 'You Died' on it.

------------------------------

That statement is tragically funny And of course, one of the main reasons, we're investigating possible solutions for this issue.

------------------------------

More suggestions were on the thread. What do you guys think? Anyone have any ideas they want to put out there for the devs to read? -- Ally

I second that! What's the point of this? So I die and run to papua and can't summon my pet? wtf? I don't do PvP with my tamer, so I don't get it...

I am a pvm'er who would be impacted by the timer restriction due to the stubborness of my pets to attack mongbats when I am running from a greater threat. Remember the Candle of Love mobs at the shrines? Many a times the only item that saved my pet and me was that pet ball you want to restrict, which i utilized up to 4x's in less than 15 seconds. Even 30 seconds and I might as well just go looking for a healer in mob situations. If the impact is in pvp, then restrict it to fel ruleset areas. Why must pvp negatively affect a pvm'er? Is coding too difficult? *remembers that challenge everything motto*

Someone really needs to post abracadabra's comment on Stratics. Why make PvM harder when it's PvP crying for a change? Felucca only, please!

I personally rarely use pet balls anymore, but only because I have to hunt Twisted Weald with a 2-month old nearby.

That is just it, pet summoning balls were never meant to be used 4 times in 15 seconds. They were supposed to be for bringing a pet out of the stables or helping find a lost one. But now people use them any time their pet is in danger of dying, when they should not have put it in the dangerous situation to begin with.

JC, if that was not an intended use, why hasn't it been removed years ago? Is not recalling away from danger, or hiding and stealthing just as critical a tactic to save one's hide? If your primary weapon is a pet who by the way, loses .1 to each of it's skills upon each death, would you not do your best by whatever tools the game provided? I have never read anything by a dev or community rep saying pet balls shouldn't be used to save your pet. Add the occassional rez kill of a pet when it's just been bandaged and rezzed, and then rekilled for double skill point loss, do you see why I want to get my pet out of harm's way? It's not like I'm a loser for a tamer either, I'm 120 in taming, lore, and vet (without jewels), 110 magery, 110 resist, 110 eval int. I do try to protect my pet as best I can. The pet's AI goes against my abilities to have it follow me from danger. The only way I can compare this to a melee dexer would be if he had a favorite weapon that wouldn't hit the intended target, and commands to kill were ignored, until the weapon was useless and lost stats as well, after you both died. Not too fun, right?

What about if a pet ball consumed a number of charges equal to the number of follower slots for the pet?

I still think this is another knee-jerk nerf, and I hate that it will impact PvM when only PvP is "unbalanced."

I find it interesting that most PvP templates work well with certain unapproved programs...except tamer templates...yet tamers are getting the short end of the stick.

How about this: Fix PvP scripting, then I'll sacrifice my pet balls.

agreed. I don't have a problem with the petballs. Leave em alone. Then again I don't have a PvP tamer... Can't they make item tweeks work only in Fel?

pet balls are small fry problems they shouldn't concern themselves with this matter

Agreed on this as well