I'm glad this is being talked about, both because it really does need attention and because I appreciate the round table discussion very much. From the very beginning of this thread I've seen things said that I can't help but agree with completely. Mules taking 1 slot, Nightmares 2 slots, dragons 3 and picky beetles 5? Ridiculous. The pet slot amounts sure are out of whack. But I was never able to reason a sensible way to deal with it, so I never brought it up in discussion. If nightmares were dropped to 1 slot to match mules, where does that leave imps (for example)? I think that with the framework of the pet slot system being what it is, it's unavoidable that there will be some - perhaps many - pets that will be underpowered when considering their control slot requirements. The only way to get around it would be to have a span of ~30 control slots to work with to divide pets by strength more easily OR to make every single pet useful and viable, and neither of those is a sane idea. So some of the big questions I think are: Which pets are going to see pet slot adjustments in order to increase their viability? - and: Which pets are never going to be very useful and therefore don't need attention?
I've played a lot of Ultima - been playing for the better part of 14 years - and this is far from the first time I've seen this discussion. Even in T2A/Renaissance, the control slot counts just didn't make sense. I'm not wise enough to riddle out all the problems here and I don't envy staff for what will surely be a massive undertaking,
but I have seen some things again and again AND again over the years that just might apply here too. First is that unfortunately, you're kind of stuck with having a wide range of monster strengths all rolled up into the 1 control slot category. You can kind of make all the 2's and 3's fit together but 1 is always everything from a chicken to something that can cast flamestrike, thus that category will never truly make sense.
Second is that - IMHO, based on what I've seen time and again - post changes, whatever they are, most players will simply drill down to whatever they feel the new "best" is and roll with just that. I don't believe that the variety that everyone is clamoring for will really manifest itself the way some people would like to see. All pets cannot be equal, it's not going to happen. Therefore there will still be a "best" and therefore players will still say "Why should I roll with anything but the best?". On any other server I played on, it's nightmares/dragons/WW and that's it. The only thing that ever differs is the # of pets you see depending on server control slot limits. Because they're the best and nobody intentionally gimps themselves except for the one oddball that comes along every three years or so. Same thing with playstyles - nobody rolled with a pure bard because it was the worst at PvP and not the best at PvM either. If you did, everyone would assume you were a noob who didn't know better because no one would do that
on purpose.
With regard to that lack of variety, I had been playing with ideas that I meant to use in the future (now sidelined pending changes) based on what I saw other players do here. Everyone's choice of pet here seems to be based solely on their bankroll. If all they can afford is mules, it's mules. When they can afford nobles, the mules bite the dust. And when they can afford imps, the nobles join the mules. I tried five mules against the MOA and five nobles as well, and the mules took it down quicker - but that doesn't stop people from using nobles anyway because that's the established pecking order. Fighting poisoning creatures? Throw the nobles/imps at it anyway, forget the mules. I've seen so many nobles and imps get chewed up by poison and thought: when I get a LBOH or better, I'll carry mules AND imps. Definitely use mules against large poisoning spawns OR if fighting a single strong baddie with poison, have a macro to send in a mule first to tank followed by the imps. Maybe buying extra pet slots and mixing bios/cu sidhe/imps to see what could really be devastating. But I've never seen anyone else do it yet. Heck, many strong players I've seen weren't using any pets ever. Even if I was tanking a champ boss with my face and 220 dex/450hp, I'd have still unpacked 5 imps to speed it along. The greatest majority of strong hitters I've seen don't, and I've done a lot of champs.
Not to say that many pets don't need or shouldn't get an overhaul, that's a worthy goal. I just think that it'll be much harder than it might appear at first to get players to use more than just a few pets in combat when it's all said and done.
I was thinking what EndeR wrote just before he wrote it. As far as imps taking a hit, I think that a delay on reuse is an excellent idea and I agree that only something on the order of several hours is significant enough to be felt. Regarding the 'I'll just carry 20 imps' caveat though, I don't think there's much of any way to slow down a player with those kinds of resources. And I don't think it would be a great idea to try and tackle a problem like this by trying to stymie the richest people on the server either. If you figure out a way to stonewall Alejandro or work around his bankroll, then 95% of players are for sure up the creek without a paddle.
It's late and I have to wrap this (believe it or not) incomplete post up but I want to throw these out also. Has anyone yet suggested imps control slot requirements going up? It might be a useful idea. And regarding pet stat loss on death, please, whatever you do, don't make it rougher than it already is. I know what the percentages are but my mules always seem dedicated to losing stats every single time they die, lol. And with monsters out there that can chew up 1000hp pets in 5-8 seconds - and many players not knowing what they are until it's too late - it gets seriously expensive. It has to exist, I guess, otherwise there'd soon be no market at all for bred pets. But I feel that it could be a little more forgiving and reach a middle ground where it's not socking it to either pet onwers or breeders.
Thanks +Nyx and +Veritas for your thought and effort on this and so much else.
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