About the pets

[+Nyx]

You are sleeping on the couch tonight, sir.

[+Veritas]

Okay...volunteer at their local salvation army?

+V

[+Nyx]

[Alex]

Rainbow breathe butterfly FTW!!! def should be on the top of the food chain.

This is def one of the trickier things to play around with since it impacts almost everyone at every skill level. I think its great to think about, but tough to find the right solution. I think the consensus is that we favor some form of change but need to figure out how.

Devlin has made some interesting points. I dont mind the freezing of imps upon death but what about the ice wyrm and paroxy, there is no other way of killing them than the use of imps? imps typically die several times and need to be rezzed quickly. I guess it will require teamwork and an army of 15 imps.

[Kevan]

I don't think imp pets going to your backpack for 5/10/20/30/60 minutes is going to do much. Other than chef parox, ruby dragon and the wyrm, my imp pets haven't died at all in 2+ months and they're only at 600hp each.

[Devlin]

As a pet breeder, I'm all for improving various pets, as well as the breeding system. Imps (the little green guys) would be AWESOME, if only they didn't take 2 slots. Five of those guys running around would be like feeding a bunch of gremlins after midnight. Breeding wouldn't be such a hassle if success rates weren't so abysmal, applying points wasn't a time consuming, even with Blaze's script, and if you didn't need to bounce across characters/borrow a friend to breed multiple pets. Being capped at 10 breeds per 12 hours is part of the reason i stopped doing a variety of pets and focused just on mules. Small changes such as tweaking breeds per day could lead to breeders focusing on more than mules/nobles, bringing back ozzies, hell hounds and maybe those ghastly swamp dragons. Breeding takes a bit of time/work to set up, yet for all of that, produces something incomparable to Imps, which are fairly easy to obtain.

Imprisoned Pets will have to be nerfed and people are going to have to deal with it. Theres no way of increasing pets to a level where they can be on par with Imps without creating a gap, as Nyx said. The purpose of an Imprisoned Pet should be changed. They are currently whirlwinds of destruction who can take some hits if they are ointed. Reduce their damage output significantly, or remove their pack instinct, so that the squirrels exist mainly as tanks for such fights as the Ice Wyrm/Paroxy. This allows people to still get these fights done, just not as easily, as the imps aren't the main damage contributor.

The "imp goes to pack upon death" poses a problem for these kinds of fights (Paroxy, Wyrm, etc); pets are killed fairly quickly and too long of a wait may let the boss heal/regen and result in people getting nowhere (or using pets who can suffer stat loss.) Unless some mob mechanics were to be changed (serpent in Bedlam, Paroxy, Wyrm, etc.), the stat loss feature of the imp pets couldn't be removed.

So basically, remove pack instinct or nerf their damage so that imprisoned pets are used purely for their lack of stat loss feature. They become crucial and necessary to win certain fights, which means they don't lose importance entirely, but aren't as useful in every single encounter. While they can be helpful completing some GoC quests, they won't be great at champ spawns or Gauntlet. This feature, possibly combined with making people wear +Lore gear to use/command imps, could see that imprisoned pets aren't as OP as they currently are.

[+Veritas]

Very good point to bring up. Firebreathing on a +10k hp mob is kinda ridiculous.

Perhaps making firebreath deal a percentage based damage? If firebreath on a monster is set for 40% damage, then the breath damage equation would be: [Max Hits * 0.4 = Firebreath Damage]. Maybe set a range? Minimum 10% max health and maximum 50% max health? Essentially removing the insta-kill.

Would that, along with a revival of other tamables make a "nerf" of imprisoned pets easier to accept?

Change ALL the things!

+V

[+Nyx]

I always planned to modify those particular bosses in tandem with a modification to imps. There's no reason they should be that way, particularly now that V and I have had so many new functions added to the game for our facets. There's a lot more we're able to do (and will be able to do once Coli's done with our humongous coding list) that wasn't an option when these mobs were originally coded. Changing them to bring them on par with the new pet changes would be reasonable and not even all that difficult.

[Kevan]

Offer people with imprisoned pets some sort of consolation prize depending on how ointed their pets are. For a player with max HP/sta/int/AR imps, scale the prize higher. Those pets are currently worth 100-150 EDs, so a 25-50 ED-equivalent gift along with the nerf may go a far way to show people that you appreciate the effort they put into a pet that they may not desire very much once the changes are made. Then, someone with 600hp pets like mine, may deserve a smaller gift. I think I've spent around 2 or 3 mil per pet already.

Sometimes it's not the nerf that get people upset: it's the perception that you're nerfing them with no regard to their time, energy and effort in getting the nerfed aspect to its current status only to see it torn down. Soften the blow and you won't see people as upset. Some will be up in arms either way but with time they'll still appreciate that you made the effort to try to appease them.

[Devlin]

There's no reason they should be that way, particularly now that V and I have had so many new functions added to the game for our facets.

Very true, just throwing out any sort of possibility at this moment, as well as trying to find a purpose for imp squirrels in the future/a reason for those with them to not get too upset with whatever changes occur.

I'm always around to bounce ideas off of, or test anything if needed (especially in the new areas ;P ).

[+Veritas]

Offer people with imprisoned pets some sort of consolation prize depending on how ointed their pets are. For a player with max HP/sta/int/AR imps, scale the prize higher. Those pets are currently worth 100-150 EDs, so a 25-50 ED-equivalent gift along with the nerf may go a far way to show people that you appreciate the effort they put into a pet that they may not desire very much once the changes are made. Then, someone with 600hp pets like mine, may deserve a smaller gift. I think I've spent around 2 or 3 mil per pet already.

Sometimes it's not the nerf that get people upset: it's the perception that you're nerfing them with no regard to their time, energy and effort in getting the nerfed aspect to its current status only to see it torn down. Soften the blow and you won't see people as upset. Some will be up in arms either way but with time they'll still appreciate that you made the effort to try to appease them.

Respectfully, I can't see us doing that. Not saying it wouldn't happen, but that is a slippery slope. If we did that, then we could potentially get people paging for compensation regarding items bought at auction for 10 million when they were originally introduced, then added 6 months later on a deco stone for 500k. That is just one example, I am sure there are plenty more.

They wouldn't be worthless after the changes we would decide on making. There may even be a distinct difference between some before and some after changes. There may be some attributes of the grandfathered imprisoned pets that the newly dropped ones won't have, which would make them more valuable.

Most certainly nothing written in stone yet.

+V

[Kevan]

If we did that, then we could potentially get people paging for compensation regarding items bought at auction for 10 million when they were originally introduced, then added 6 months later on a deco stone for 500k. That is just one example, I am sure there are plenty more.

I don't think you're comparing apples to apples in that scenario.

If you auctioned that deco item this Sunday evening, however, and then added it to the deco stone on Monday, then I think yes, you should also provide some sort of reimbursement in that situation.

Everything doesn't have to always be so black and white. You're willing to possibly upset a HUGE number of people by nerfing imprisoned pets, but you're worried about upsetting a small minority of people who paid for a deco item that was later available at 5%? I think you'd be better off trying to soften the blow for something that's going to affect literally hundreds of players.

Also, I think nerfing imprisoned pets is a monumental event considering the way they've saturated the player base. You wouldn't be setting a precedent by providing a small amount of compensation because the precedent going forward would only apply to another monumental event. It wouldn't have to apply to every small complaint people have about an item losing value through deflation/easy acquisition.

[+Veritas]

I don't think you're comparing apples to apples in that scenario.

If you auctioned that deco item this Sunday evening, however, and then added it to the deco stone on Monday, then I think yes, you should also provide some sort of reimbursement in that situation.

Everything doesn't have to always be so black and white. You're willing to possibly upset a HUGE number of people by nerfing imprisoned pets, but you're worried about upsetting a small minority of people who paid for a deco item that was later available at 5%? I think you'd be better off trying to soften the blow for something that's going to affect literally hundreds of players.

Also, I think nerfing imprisoned pets is a monumental event considering the way they've saturated the player base. You wouldn't be setting a precedent by providing a small amount of compensation because the precedent going forward would only apply to another monumental event. It wouldn't have to apply to every small complaint people have about an item losing value through deflation/easy acquisition.

Good points and well stated opinion. These are definitely important aspects to discuss amongst ourselves, and the staff will look at every approach to this situation. Change will not happen tomorrow, and it is a long process with many variables to consider. The only thing I can promise is that no change of this magnitude will ever be made without consideration of each player, young and old, and the future well-being of the shard as a whole.

+V

[Devlin]

Offer people with imprisoned pets some sort of consolation prize depending on how ointed their pets are.

Returning a players investment, whether through gold, ED, or oints could lead drastic changes in the market. EDs could tank if large amounts were introduced at the same time. The idea isn't to remove them entirely, just re-purpose them and/or reduce their capabilities.

Also, to support +V. They are similar comparisons in that both involve a reduction in the value of an item at a later date, which usually puts people in a position where they feel betrayed and/or cheated. They paid for the item under certain conditions (either the item was a one of a kind/squirrels are uber) and changing how the plentiful the item is/how it operates or functions changes the basis upon which a player made his or her purchase.

[+Veritas]

^What he said...

And to reiterate, we could always keep an aspect of the currently available imprisoned pets preserved as a sort of "pre-patch" collectability aspect of the pet. They won't come like that again, and therefore will make them more valuable than the new ones. I say that knowing if you cut a car in half and hand it to someone while saying "It still has value over the bare steering wheel the others will receive", will initially come across as a con. However, the goal is not the knock the imprisoned pets down to the lowest tier of viable pets, but to make their new form at a level that is more reasonable for us to bring the other pets up to match. You could complain that you lost the "old world" value of the pet, but you will now have a discontinued pet in your possession that you can still use, in a "new world" of pet possibilities.

+V