Pets and Minions, Let's Unbox This Can of Worms on Christmas Day!

[Kaemik]

Alright, it's about time we dive into this one. Domination, Taming, and Necromancy are all skills in MO2 character sheets right now. As the dude who built a skill calculator for MO2 I can tell you the skills are not pure cut and paste. There are missing skills. There are added skills. There are even some skills that have had their primaries/secondaries changed from MO1. What this means is pets and minions are coming to MO2 like it or not. The question is HOW will they be coming? So please don't waste everyone's time talking about how badly you don't want them in-game. Let's talk about implementations that are the most acceptable to everyone.

Pets

The most common complaint I see about detractors of pets from MO1 is "You just send the pet at someone and it does all the work for you." As someone who is currently leaning toward a domination and necromancy-focused mage, I can tell you that's NOT how I'd like to see it work in MO2 either. I like the fact that pets are the least aim-based style of combat but that shouldn't mean that they function well if I'm not fully engaged with making them as strong as possible the entire fight.

A good example of a pet system done fairly well is Guild Wars 1. Rangers could have pets and they were alright if you just sent them at a target and then focused on your own abilities but to really have them pop-off you actually had to slot and use pet-skills. Different games, different systems, obviously not a complete 1:1 but there is the basis for something we can work from there. The auto-attacks for every pet, even the strongest pet, should be pretty weak. Melees should easily fend of and slay any pet that is just sent out and forgotten. The real power of pets should come from activated abilities in the form of commands. So a good dominator/tamer will actually need to kind of pay attention to what a pet is doing and issue commands to make it unleash it's more devastating attacks or other abilities.

I also see there is a spell school called "Animism". I feel like this may be a buffing school for pets? If so great. If not, make one. It should absolutely be something required to be a fully effective beastmaster. This means expending mana to really makes pets shine, and it also means potentially having to land abilities on your pets to add a little bit of aim back into a mostly aimless playstyle. While controlling pets should always be a build primarily around ability selection and situational awareness it would be really cool to see builds that are using herding to control something like a pack of hounds and getting off really good buff placement on multiple pets come out ahead of someone just sitting there shooting a barn-sized minotaur with buffs.

Necromancy Minions

First off, any type of necromancy minion that is permanently on the field should draw from creature control or some similar mechanic and require some kind of heavy primary point investment beyond 100 points in Necromancy. Second off, I'd rather see more temporary minion summons and less permanent crafted minions or perhaps none at all. Now the fact there are components used in the creation of minions is GREAT and I love the idea that I should need to research my minions like an alchemist researches their potions. Carrying around bits of corpses and reagents and gems I can use to summon more powerful minions is an absolutely wonderful mechanic. It really adds to the feel that top maging is about depth of knowledge. You can't just hop in and do it knowing nothing. Brilliant. So much more interesting than the "Press 5 for fireball" most games have for a class that's powers scale off freaking intelligence. >.>

But make me summon most of them during the battle. By that I mean, minions should have a lifespan measured in minutes or even seconds in some cases before they collapse and go away.

1. Because if I need mana to buff my pets, and I need mana to heal my pets, and I also need mana to get off a Tlash or whatever else I am going to do, that makes mana management a huge factor in how OP a minion master can be.
2. This creates the most appropriate weakness for a minion master. It has a slow build-up. If I'm a known necromancer and I have to summon my minions during the fight then smart opponents are going to try to kill me first and stop my minion army before I can ever get it built up. This means I need to play smart, be very careful with positioning and really play my hardest to get to the point my minions can even make an impact. Otherwise I'll die like a chump having done little to nothing to help my team.
3. This allows for one of the most skill-based aspects of minion play. What minions am I going to put on the field? Good minion mastery should involve reading the battlefield and deciding what my teams needs and will hurt the enemy the most. If I have a go-to minion I summon for every fight then the class is too simplistic. If I'm sitting there like "Hmmm this situation calls for skeletons. Oh adding a mummy or two in there will really help us out. Oh crap, they did that? Flaming skull. That's what we need right now" That's going to be a lot more interesting class to play.

Like pets commands and buffs absolutely add another level of depth and while you do need to allow time to summon minions if that's the mechanic you go with, making good minion masters mix that in there would be great.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

Pets

The most common complaint I see about detractors of pets from MO1 is "You just send the pet at someone and it does all the work for you." As someone who is currently leaning toward a domination and necromancy-focused mage, I can tell you that's NOT how I'd like to see it work in MO2 either. I like the fact that pets are the least aim-based style of combat but that shouldn't mean that they function well if I'm not fully engaged with making them as strong as possible the entire fight.

A good example of a pet system done fairly well is Guild Wars 1. Rangers could have pets and they were alright if you just sent them at a target and then focused on your own abilities but to really have them pop-off you actually had to slot and use pet-skills. Different games, different systems, obviously not a complete 1:1 but there is the basis for something we can work from there. The auto-attacks for every pet, even the strongest pet, should be pretty weak. Melees should easily fend of and slay any pet that is just sent out and forgotten. The real power of pets should come from activated abilities in the form of commands. So a good dominator/tamer will actually need to kind of pay attention to what a pet is doing and issue commands to make it unleash it's more devastating attacks or other abilities.

I also see there is a spell school called "Animism". I feel like this may be a buffing school for pets? If so great. If not, make one. It should absolutely be something required to be a fully effective beastmaster. This means expending mana to really makes pets shine, and it also means potentially having to land abilities on your pets to add a little bit of aim back into a mostly aimless playstyle. While controlling pets should always be a build primarily around ability selection and situational awareness it would be really cool to see builds that are using herding to control something like a pack of hounds and getting off really good buff placement on multiple pets come out ahead of someone just sitting there shooting a barn-sized minotaur with buffs.

Yes. How Guild Wars 1, Guild Wars 2, WoW, etc. treats their pets works just fine IMO. Because they are not individually good, they just pair well to their master.

In MO1, the pet literally functioned like an additional player of varying degrees (Pets that had high damage mitigation, long range AoE, etc.) These things made fights unenjoyable. They were one and done, one trick types of playing. It wasn't fun to use, and it wasn't fun to play against.

If you want to make it more interactive, spells should be intertwined with the usage of craftable pets. Mana should be used when calling to attack, to retreat, to do X move and it goes on cooldown. Beastmasters / Dominators would follow through an expanded pet controls system that is more engaging, but their pets are weaker due to no mana use.

Necromancy Minions

First off, any type of necromancy minion that is permanently on the field should draw from creature control or some similar mechanic and require some kind of heavy primary point investment beyond 100 points in Necromancy. Second off, I'd rather see more temporary minion summons and less permanent crafted minions or perhaps none at all. Now the fact there are components used in the creation of minions is GREAT and I love the idea that I should need to research my minions like an alchemist researches their potions. Carrying around bits of corpses and reagents and gems I can use to summon more powerful minions is an absolutely wonderful mechanic. It really adds to the feel that top maging is about depth of knowledge. You can't just hop in and do it knowing nothing. Brilliant. So much more interesting than the "Press 5 for fireball" most games have for a class that's powers scale off freaking intelligence. >.>

But make me summon most of them during the battle. By that I mean, minions should have a lifespan measured in minutes or even seconds in some cases before they collapse and go away.

1. Because if I need mana to buff my pets, and I need mana to heal my pets, and I also need mana to get off a Tlash or whatever else I am going to do, that makes mana management a huge factor in how OP a minion master can be.
2. This creates the most appropriate weakness for a minion master. It has a slow build-up. If I'm a known necromancer and I have to summon my minions during the fight then smart opponents are going to try to kill me first and stop my minion army before I can ever get it built up. This means I need to play smart, be very careful with positioning and really play my hardest to get to the point my minions can even make an impact. Otherwise I'll die like a chump having done little to nothing to help my team.
3. This allows for one of the most skill-based aspects of minion play. What minions am I going to put on the field? Good minion mastery should involve reading the battlefield and deciding what my teams needs and will hurt the enemy the most. If I have a go-to minion I summon for every fight then the class is too simplistic. If I'm sitting there like "Hmmm this situation calls for skeletons. Oh adding a mummy or two in there will really help us out. Oh crap, they did that? Flaming skull. That's what we need right now" That's going to be a lot more interesting class to play.

Like pets commands and buffs absolutely add another level of depth and while you do need to allow time to summon minions if that's the mechanic you go with, making good minion masters mix that in there would be great.

There was temporary minion summons. Skeletons and zombies to name a few.

There needs to be some kind of additional draw on mana usage with craftable / summonable pets, or mana usage on commands / attacks, or both. Because mages with pets were fully fledged mages with lets say Necromancy + Ecumenical + Pet. Which made them waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay stronger than they needed to be.

Granted, it was usually in the hands of not so good players and the mage didn't make much difference but a DK for example was basically an unkillable NPC in a fight that just consistently would hit, never run out of stamina, and would stick. Good for sticking on other mages.

 

[Kaemik]

I'm entirely fine with not having DKs period. I think big powerful singular pets should be more of a function of taming/domination while necromancy should focus more on lots of little guys. But I think if DKs should be a thing they should require similar primary-point investment to a big-hitter-dominated pet. And they should require similar levels of attention to what I described in the part on pets.

Actually, a great way to implement big nasty permanents into necromancy would be make them something that takes X Necromancy Y Domination and Z Creature Control points. That way you can have a variety of really cool big nasties for necromancers but they're auto-balanced through existing systems that tamers/dominators use to control their big nasties. Meanwhile, if you only want points in necromancy you only get the little dudes.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

What ever increases player engagement and the skill ceiling both from a mechanical and player standpoint im all for.

 

[Kaemik]

My problem with DKs is how low of a primary point investment is. Necromancy gives many good spells. It also gives little minions I can summon en-masse. It also gives big old nasties like shades and DKs.

Like I can grab my movement skills, my mana skills, necromancy tree and still have points left over for a pretty darn solid dominated pet. This includes ecumenical magic as a prereq so we're talking healing spells, dps, spells and utility spells all wrapped up in this big ol' nasty package of ass-kicking.

Necromancy seems to give too much. The idea of big old nasty minions to spearhead the charge of my skeletal hordes into battle is fine. But if I'm doing that effectively it should be literally my entire build and 100% of my attention dedicated to doing so. Making necromancy nasties work on the pet system and require necromancy as well leaves me A LOT less points to work around with. Or realistically fewer big nasties because if I can fit regular big nasties and necromancy big nasties into my build together I absolutely will.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

You're talking more like a Guild Wars 1 system of summoning, which I approve of.

Those minions should just gradually lose HP unless healed through some kind of sacrificial healing magic or regular healing.

 

[Kaemik]

You're talking more like a Guild Wars 1 system of summoning, which I approve of.

Those minions should just gradually lose HP unless healed through some kind of sacrificial healing magic or regular healing.

GW1 was the game where I discovered that I really enjoy being a healer, forever relegating me to that role in 90% of other MMOs I've played because every guild wants you to be a healer when they know that's something you're good at.

Before I discovered healing though, I was a necromancer. And yes. It was a great system. Minus the presence of hard crowd-control, I think GW1 had a lot of ideas worth borrowing. It's a gold standard as far ability-based games go IMO.

 

[sigrace]

I'm glad someone brought up the necromancer from GW1. That was class flavor and mechanics done well.

On the topic:
TL;DR: Tamed creatures should offer more utility than damage. Dominated creatures should do a good deal of damage at the cost of the dominators resources and become hostile to everyone if the dominator runs out of resources or dies.

I've only played MO1 a few times, so I don't quite have the background on what Tamed/dominated creatures can do. So bare that in mind when I lay this out.

Tamed creatures and dominated creatures should operate differently.

Tamed creatures should not draw any resources (Health, Stamina, Mana) from their owner and act more as a utility. Ex. A player with a high enough beast mastery can order their dog to latch onto an enemies leg, slowing them down. This ability might eat into the dogs stamina and leaves it vulnerable to being attacked by the ensnared player, but cost its own nothing to command it to do that. Any utility command should allow for counter play, regardless of animal. Tamed creature damage should depend on the animal in question, but in general be a bit lower than a player with a weapon or magic. When a player dies, the tamed creature is still loyal to them and will continue following the last order it was given to the best of it's ability.

Dominated creatures should have higher damage and be closer to a player at the cost of the dominators resources. Essentially, in order to keep whatever dominated creature the player has under their control , they must sacrifice some of their max resources. Commanding this creature to do something should require additional resources spent. Additionally, if the dominator player dies or their resource pool is spent, the dominated creature should be able to break free and attack anything nearby (like GW1 Necromancer minions). What I hope something like this would do is allow the dominator to control a powerful minion, but at the risk of unleashing it on themselves should they they throw one to many spells or commands.

 

[Kaemik]

Hmmm, the idea of the dominator pet turning on the party if they die is interesting. I wouldn't agree it should be all dominated pets but I would agree that would be an interesting mechanic to give some of them, and the ones that get it should in general be more powerful. If that happens I'd add a "flee" command.

If you're about to die and you order your pet to flee, it's going to keep fleeing after you die. Of course, if you manage to snap off a heal or something and you manage to live, your pet is going to continue to flee. That definitely adds a huge degree of skill to that mechanic because it requires you to make a judgment call based on situational awareness. In a lot of cases the dominator may straight-up forget that skill exists and others may be antsy and pull the trigger on it too early costing them their pet in major fights. But executed at the right time it's mostly just going to save your team.

 

[Mirteus]

Hmm, I gotta say I do love some of these ideas,
I often mained a mage in MO1, at some points being also a dominator or necromancer, but I really hated how simple/almost AFK using pets was, would love the main strong pets to be very weak if you dont activelly controll them constantly giving them commands.

Also it was my dream to have necromancy in MO1 and when it was added to the game I was dissapointed that it didnt focus on using multiple weaker minions at once.
Sure we had skeletons, zombies, mummies, but most of the time they were basically useless, would love if a necromancer could utilize many weaker minnions in some effective way.

 

[Eldrath]

There is a balancing trap when it comes to pets. Once pets reached a certain power level they started requiring more skilllpoints to use. That made pet users fairly useless in other aspects of combat which in turn lead to them wanting even more powerful pets.

To break this I think utility over raw power combined with dramatically reducing the number of primaries would help.

This would not only help with combat balance but increase the enjoyment of a 1 character set up.

This can be translated to magical pets as well although you will have to keep the other spells in mind as well.