Feedback on 1% skill lost with gain speed as player

[Kears]

Hi,

I am a tamer who takes extra care of my pets, loves taming, and heals my pets never letting them die as much as I could prevent it.

I have suffered the 10% decrease (once) on my nightmare skills, didn't complain and proceed to train up after the adjusted 1% and after 2 days of playing, below is my feedback.

The only two skills that was a problem were Magic Resist and Magery.

3-4 hours playtime of training with my nightmare raises its Magic Resist by 0.7-1.1% (in the 75-80% range), Magery 0.8-1.2% ( in the 75-80% range, it's a nightmare and only has 120 mana).

in this 3-4 hours playtime, I got pked twice (once by a red, the other by 2 reds), my nightmare, of course, died twice.

I am now back at a lower Magic Resist and Magery that I had 3-4 hours ago.

Is this what was intended?

"Skill gain will be in line with the rate players gain skill" seems too harsh in conjunction with 1% decrease for every pet death.


In 1999 when I played UO, everyone was afraid of tamers with dragon.
In UOF for the past 2 months, everyone don't fight tamers head on, they lure mobs to engage pets (with pets stubbornly sticking to the mobs no matter how many all kill commands you give) before moving on to abuse the poor tamer.
In UOF for the past 2 days, tamers (maybe just me) are afraid of anyone and anything who comes close because dying is added with the risk of losing 3-4 hours playtime to train the pet up again, do bear in mind those pets that are made tameable are no longer as strong as in 1999 and can easily die to most end game mobs (even with vet).


Just my feedback for consideration on future implementation.


The next day..
So I logged in today, fearless and with great determination to see my nightmare go above 80 in magery.

Just 15mins into the game on some titans, I went to Wind ancient wyrms and saw a POWER guild's tamer recalling out and then a POWER guild red came thereafter and pked me while I was diligently casting great heals and bandaging my nightmare fighting the ancient wyrm. My nightmares, of coz died soonafter and dropped another 1% without having the chance to gain any point at all, another 3-4 hours of real playtime gone...

Thereafter I went to Ice and saw fellow tamer Cosmo, we were talking for abit and a red came running to us. Cosmo had a white wyrm and a dragon and I had 2 nightmares, guess what did we tamers x2 with 4x "powerful" pets do? ....yes, we both recalled out. We were afraid, not because of dying and losing our equipment or whatever worldly possessions you think would matter but the 3-4 hours of real playtime we need to invest in to bring our pet's Magic Resist & Magery back up..

This is not funny Devs, please find a balance for us.

Thanks.

 

[CVegas]

First off, I can tell you that this post you made will be deleted. I know this because I had one prior to yours about this topic, and it was. I too suffered the 10% on my 6X GM. Magery crawls, yes. It's going to be about a month of constant playing (which I don't have) but that's where we are. They DID adjust the gains, because before this it was going even SLOWER. I doubt there will be anymore changes. I too care about my pets and have been hauling ass out of dungeons if I see a PK threat incoming. Boy, things are changing.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

I was lucky enough to not know about the changes, my 7x dragon died 2X and now it is more woethless the a freshly tamed one. I dont think the gains are that great either. People never use to take the time to kill your pets. Now they kill them every time. So your right i think, one death should not be 3-4 hrs of retraining.

 

[84brian]

Yea. Small change,Huge impact. 2 days ago my pets resist would only go up like point one an hour and when ur fighting mobs, only one drag is gaining resist at a time. Kinda nice though. Cuz I've been super addicted (to the point where I'd have 5 hours of sleep til work) to this game since I've started playing and since the changes. I've kinda lost my will to play as much. I'm kinda curious on why they decided to implement this?

 

[edw3rdwood]

The skill loss should only be temporary, like maybe 10% skill loss for 1-2 hours. That is still enough to make you keep your eye on your pets

If PKs catch you at a bad time it can be all over in less than 5 seconds, and then it's going to take hours to get those skills back up?

 

[Bigwyrm]

SO if the pet skill gains were inline with player gains then i could gm my pets resist from 50 to gm in hrs ..like i can

now on any char..but its not i have tryed to train my pet for 5 hrs on balrons, ancient wyrms, dragons and only got .2

or resist....so 25 hrs per full point of the harder skills to gain that is no good...so retraining your pet from even a few

deaths becomes very daunting process..and i love the training a new pet part of the game but this is little to fast of

loss of skill with to long to gain it back... its imbalanced

 

[halygon]

SO if the pet skill gains were inline with player gains then i could gm my pets resist from 50 to gm in hrs ..like i can

This would only be possible if you cast mana vampire on them like you do yourself -- which isn't going to happen.

 

[Bigwyrm]

I was mearly showing you a real examlpe/comparison of player gain and pet gains ..sub out your own time frame for gm resist on a player char and it still isint even close ..the pets gain so much slower..also i could make argument that i actually have more spells cast on my pets while training.. I have multiple high lvl mobs casting on it constanly with no med time.i just recall in to next mob waiting to dump my pet..i didnt wanna get into all that but

 

[halygon]

I was mearly showing you a real examlpe/comparison of player gain and pet gains ..sub out your own time frame for gm resist on a player char and it still isint even close ..the pets gain so much slower..also i could make argument that i actually have more spells cast on my pets while training.. I have multiple high lvl mobs casting on it constanly with no med time.i just recall in to next mob waiting to dump my pet..i didnt wanna get into all that but

Nah I get your point. It's just you train a pet differently than you do a character. If you train them wrong, you will see the terrible gains that you guys are seeing. I've trained many a drag and mare in my day.

 

[NoXXeD]

the thing about it is that mobs don't cast the high circle spells that the pets need to gain resist, and the pets don't cast the high circle spells that they need to gain magery....I hope staff looks into this and decides against their decision and put skill gain at a little better then player at least...

 

[halygon]

the thing about it is that mobs don't cast the high circle spells that the pets need to gain resist, and the pets don't cast the high circle spells that they need to gain magery....I hope staff looks into this and decides against their decision and put skill gain at a little better then player at least...

They don't cast mana vamp but they do cast FS which will GM resist along with EB.

 

[Bigwyrm]

Nah I get your point. It's just you train a pet differently than you do a character. If you train them wrong, you will see the terrible gains that you guys are seeing. I've trained many a drag and mare in my day.

Ya you must be talkin about before the changes ..because there is no way you are training even a few points of resist and magery the way it is now in a day ..unless by day you mean 24 full hrs maybe even then you prolly get a point or two tops..i also dont wanna now get into wrong way/ right way to train pets either..high end mobs cast alot of high circle spells..idk where you goin with that but lets not go there

 

[halygon]

Ya you must be talkin about before the changes ..because there is no way you are training even a few points of resist and magery the way it is now in a day ..unless by day you mean 24 full hrs maybe even then you prolly get a point or two tops..i also dont wanna now get into wrong way/ right way to train pets either..high end mobs cast alot of high circle spells..idk where you goin with that but lets not go there

I'm talking about now. See with the previous skill gain, there was no need to formally train pets because farming with them trained them just fine. With the skill gain much lower now you either need to formally train the pet or spend a very long time (probably weeks to months) farming as usual.

The devs just made a new market by accident. Just wait for the pet trainers to start selling 7x pets.

 

[Kears]

So I logged in today, with great determination to see my nightmare go above 80 in magery.

Just 15mins into the game on some titans, I went to Wind ancient wyrms and saw a POWER guild's tamer recalling out and then a POWER guild red came thereafter and pked me while I was diligently casting great heals and bandaging my nightmares fighting the ancient wyrm. My nightmares, of coz died soonafter and dropped another 1% without having the chance to gain any point at all, another 3-4 HOURS real playtime gone...

Thereafter I went to Ice and saw fellow tamer Cosmo, we were talking for abit and a red came running to us. Cosmo had a white wyrm and a dragon and I had 2 nightmares, guess what did we tamers x2 with 4x "powerful" pets do? ....yes, we both recalled out. We were afraid, not because of dying and losing our equipment or whatever worldly possessions you think would matter but the 3-4 hours of real playtime we need to invest in to bring our pet's Magic Resist & Magery back up..

This is not funny Devs, please find a balance for us.

Thanks.

 

[NoXXeD]

So I logged in today, with great determination to see my nightmare go above 80 in magery.

Just 15mins into the game on some titans, I went to Wind ancient wyrms and saw a POWER guild's tamer recalling out and then a POWER guild red came thereafter and pked me while I was diligently casting great heals and bandaging my nightmares fighting the ancient wyrm. My nightmares, of coz died soonafter and dropped another 1% without having the chance to gain any point at all, another 3-4 HOURS real playtime gone...

Thereafter I went to Ice and saw fellow tamer Cosmo, we were talking for abit and a red came running to us. Cosmo had a white wyrm and a dragon and I had 2 nightmares, guess what did we tamers x2 with 4x "powerful" pets do? ....yes, we both recalled out. We were afraid, not because of dying and losing our equipment or whatever worldly possessions you think would matter but the 3-4 hours of real playtime we need to invest in to bring our pet's Magic Resist & Magery back up..

This is not funny Devs, please find a balance for us.

Thanks.

+1 There is no reason to even stick around if you see a blue that just makes you scared. I bet you are going to see less tamers in champs, fighting paragons, sticking around anywhere at all. Its not worth the time it takes to get any of your skills back.

 

[Shane]

So what exactly are you guys looking for here? Before, as it was, people really didn't give two cares about their "bonded pets" that are suppose to be the closest companion to them over-all. They would let them die, with zero consequence what so ever or give a shit. We are all about finding balance for sure guys, but this is a first step to finding that. Let us know your issues, concerns etc like Kaers did and we will take it into consideration hands down.

Basically it was really EASY/OP originally,
However now maybe its a bit too hard.

 

[Sundigo]

So what exactly are you guys looking for here? Before, as it was, people really didn't give two cares about their "bonded pets" that are suppose to be the closest companion to them over-all. They would let them die, with zero consequence what so ever or give a shit. We are all about finding balance for sure guys, but this is a first step to finding that. Let us know your issues, concerns etc like Kaers did and we will take it into consideration hands down.

Basically it was really EASY/OP originally,
However now maybe its a bit too hard.

No consequences? That's what this was about?

Tamers have to dedicate a skill slot to Vet, which they also have to train up to GM, just so that they can resurrect their pets (since Magery can't do it) - an entire skill slot, JUST for resurrecting, nothing else (Magery can heal).

Getting taming to a level where you can even have a high-level pet takes much more time and effort than any other skill in the game, and it is by far the most "given up on" UO player dream, because of the sheer effort involved.

After all that, the truth is that a couple of high level pets are still no match for a group of reds (which regularly roll through the dungeons) - so it is generally considered a PVM template.

I have no idea what, in your mind, warrants a need for "consequences when a pet dies". You say it was "too easy" the way it was - why? What exactly was too easy about it? The farming rewards?

Given the sheer difficulty of training taming, you might say that the potential for rich farming rewards (which were the only real benefit gained) were every bit deserved as the "end-game prize" for the Herculean effort made to get there.

I can see no reason for any of these changes, and the only real consequence of this change seems to be just yet another opportunity for endless griefing by those who enjoy such things.

I do not understand what the perceived "problem" was that this was meant to correct.

Regards,

Sundigo

 

[TheFallen]

The problem was people leaving their pets at spawns and basically going afk getting points. Or just throwing pets at a high level mob over and over and over. This has certainly been solved however I could see it being slightly refined further.
Skill gain is hard now (and should be, makes a 7x pet more rewarding).
The problem now is people who are working their pets in spawn they can handle will still have pets die occasionally and right now the penalty out weighs the rate of gain for what would be considered by most a reasonable amount of deaths.
I would suggest keeping difficult gains but decreases the loss per death to .1 with an added exception of 1.0 loss if your pet dies more than one screen away or out of line of sight of the owner. Ie. Leave your pet unattended or recall to save your own hid and leave your pet to the mercy of the pk the suffer the loss.

 

[Sundigo]

The problem was people leaving their pets at spawns and basically going afk getting points. Or just throwing pets at a high level mob over and over and over. This has certainly been solved however I could see it being slightly refined further.
Skill gain is hard now (and should be, makes a 7x pet more rewarding).
The problem now is people who are working their pets in spawn they can handle will still have pets die occasionally and right now the penalty out weighs the rate of gain for what would be considered by most a reasonable amount of deaths.
I would suggest keeping difficult gains but decreases the loss per death to .1 with an added exception of 1.0 loss if your pet dies more than one screen away or out of line of sight of the owner. Ie. Leave your pet unattended or recall to save your own hid and leave your pet to the mercy of the pk the suffer the loss.

1.) Going AFK and leaving pets - a lot of skill raising is done AFK in this game. Was AFK pet training illegal? If not, then why is it a problem? If it is illegal, then its no different than any other AFK violation (like mining) - and there is already a consequence in place for those violations.

2.) Repeatedly throwing your pets against a high-end mob. Why would that be a problem? Name me one skill-gain or resource-gathering activity in this game that does not involve repetition, and a lot of it. Why is this specifically a problem?

Regards,

Sundigo

 

[TheFallen]

Leaving pets at champ spawns while afk is pretty much afk resource gathering and has nothing to do with training. Now since we have smart gm they would rather find a solution to encourage more active play than just ban everyone. As for high mobs you either are expected to work in groups or learn tactics that don't just treat pets as so disposable.
I'm sorry you can't see the fact that everyone having 7x pets devalues pets. If your play style is to throw your pets at some thing and spend a couple of bandaid once it's dead you shouldn't have the same benefits of the tamer actively working with their pet.