Imps

[Agony]

First of all, I want to say that I totally respect imp users (I was one fore 3 years),
I think this shard would be better without them though. I spent 1 year ointing up my 5 imps and all I did was release em if I hit a tough spot with no consequence. They do unbelievable damage and never lose stats, which is killing the breeders' market.
If you think I somehow have any alterior motive for this post, four nights ago I gave away 3 ointed imps for nothing (Value of 15 Mil).
Getting rid of imps, I think, would boost the tamer economy tremendously.

[+Nyx]

I do agree that imps are sort of a game breaker in a way, and V and I have spent an inordinate amount of time discussing fixes for this that would not enrage the players. That's difficult, since taking anything away is always a bad move in the eyes of a large portion of the players, so you risk losing a chunk of the playerbase. What we thought would be best to do is make better tamables, reduce the slots for pets like nightmares and dragons, and give them a bump to their base stats. We would also like to see something with imps such as if they die you can't unshrink them again for 1 day, or something to that effect. So it's sorta a nerf but not removing them all together. We also thought it might be nice to put out a sort of 'pet insurance' that prevents them from losing stats on loss, but it costs per death. It's a really tricky thing to think of trying to fix, from the staff point of view, lol.

Edit: It also just offends me personally that the 'best' pets on the shard are small fluffy creatures or essentially horses. They're better than dragons, and yet they're... squirrels? Nobles? Ugh. I'm from old school UO where a well trained dragon/wyrm was the ultimate in pwnage. I miss those days and I really, really, really loathe the tiny fluffy imp armies and the nobles being the most viable form of pets.

[Locke]

I'm totally agree with that, we need more tremendous pet and to get ride of this tiny fluffy squirrel!!! +1

[Asmodean]

I like the squirrels and ferrets, and dogs to an extent. (Which would be much better without the shape shifting). I'd actually enjoy seeing a new kind, and randomized damage, so if you wanted a particular set, it would be even harder to get. 4 energy damage squirrels, or 1 of each type? R A R E.

When I started here, i wanted a nightmare because of their fighting skills on classic UO, here they just kinda take up space, and you use them to complete bods.

Mules make just about any other kind of mount useless (in the beginning) because of the pack, AND poison resist, AND stat caps AND they are 1 slot.

I also like the fluffy animal theme because in my opinion, its a lot easier to see whats going on when squirrels are attacking, than say ancient wyrms, white wyrms, or dragons, although i do agree its 'cooler' to see the dragons etc attacking, and looking ferocious like.

[Agony]

One more thing... HYENAS... We -need- hyenas. They will solve all of our problems. Always wanted to see hyenas in UO hehe
I love the idea of modifying the -lesser- tamables to be more useful.. I also think that killer horses that will chew apart a dragon is a bit awkward to say the least

[Asmodean]

Speaking of this, i would love to see ferrets keep their poison attack, squirrels switched to energy, dogs keep fire, and lose polymorph, and a new type for cold damage.

Maybe alter what they eat to ointments to keep them happy. Could be a nice boost/tradeoff for using these powerful pets.

[Isaac Newton]

Tribbles! Because they give us love.

Isaac Newton

[Ilsanor]

First of all, I want to say that I totally respect imp users (I was one fore 3 years),

And you bring this up only now, when you actually don't need them anymore. No ulterior motive indeed.

which is killing the breeders' market

Relayers, GoC's and leveled weapons kill the crafter's market. Should we do away with those as well?

I'm of the opinion that some of the widely used features of this shard (the imps, the insta-heal, the relayers, the levelling) should stay the way they are. Nerfing them will not make the shard any better, only make some of the players go away. On the other hand, however, adding new pets or buffing the existing ones so they can (somewhat) compete with imps is a good idea. Wouldn't go overboard with it though - remember imps can't breed, while all other pets can. I we make other pets as good as imps we'll have breeders pumping out ultra-quality pets in no time.

[Jecks]

Granted I cant remember the last time I even used my imp pack, I'd hate to see them take a nerf. Mostly for the people who rely on them due to gear issues, etc. A couple new additions to the breeding field would be nice though. Maybe something breaking pack str cap, but a tremendously high sterile rate.

[Yoda]

the solve for this is and always has been adjusting the maxxes on 2 and 3 slot pets.. to make them theoretically more powerfull than their 1 slot counterpart.. lets take 2 examples

nightmare 2 slots
and an energy wyrm 3 slots

what if.. the 2 slotter had a max cap on str and hp of 2k instead of 1 and the 3 slotter 3k

hey wait have had this idea for a long time
http://www.uoex.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4053

so do something like that and the variety instantly returns
as does the demand for bonus pet slot ED deeds

[Isaac Newton]

It seems to me that it is not the max potential of a breeding pet that makes it a 2 or 3 slot animal but the starting stats. Is a max nightmare twice as good as a max one slot pet or a max dragon three times the beast? If not, perhaps they should not be taking up 2 or 3 slots.

Isaac Newton

[Ilsanor]

IIRC there is no such thing as ointments on OSI (correct me if I'm wrong). So pets are as good as they are at the moment of taming. The 2 and 3 slot pets are just that because they had better stats than 1-slotters. Seeing that Excelsior removed such distinction by adding oints I'd say the pets with more slots should have something else to go for them other than starting stats. And don't tell me it's impossible to up the limits - bios already have 3k str hp and mana. Only problem I see with bumping up the multi-slotters is that it'd make them on par with bios. But that can easily be solved by upgrading bios as well.

[Nunja]

Imo:

Imps = leave as they are
pets = multiply stats by factor of slots required
eg
1 slot = max hp = 1000
2 slot = max hp = (1000) * 2
3 slot = max hp = (1000) * 3
(exact numbers would have to be balanced)

bio = reduce slots required for non-humanoid bio so they are worth getting over pets

But the time required to develop, test and deploy this (with volunteer staff) is a significant undertaking.

[leehovan]

And it really seriously sadden me whenever my little hell cats loses stats after trying to breed them and downbreed them again in order move up the stats ladder. Took me ages to get that =(

I'm in for the idea of pets not losing their stats after they die. Of course it's up for the staffs to decide

[Carpe Noctem]

Edit: It also just offends me personally that the 'best' pets on the shard are small fluffy creatures or essentially horses. They're better than dragons, and yet they're... squirrels? Nobles? Ugh. I'm from old school UO where a well trained dragon/wyrm was the ultimate in pwnage. I miss those days and I really, really, really loathe the tiny fluffy imp armies and the nobles being the most viable form of pets.

Para gankin blues with my WW on LS. Good ole days.
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