Pet pulling - Going with a bang or a whimper?

[bham]

Pet pulling will be removed form the game once Sony's programmers work out how to fix the code. It was an unintentional bug all along.

Personally I think pet pulling is something that has been in the game so long that it should be retained as a useful ability for pet classes. Beastlords excel at nothing, so the ability to do lots of things moderately well is our only strength. Losing any one of our abilities reduces our worth as a whole, and I dont want to see that.

Pet pulling is generally not an efficient or risk-free way to pull. It costs time, mana and DPS for the puller. It is risky when the pet has no range attack and it is vulnerable to bad pathing, mob DS and mob stuns. As such I think pet pulling is fine the way it is with 2 exceptions.

1) Mage fire pets have the ability to pull mobs from range with their spells. As such, as long as LOS exists a green con fire pet can be used to pull mobs without any risk of the pet dying in social range of mobs and aggroing adds, and a very low risk of the pet dying out of social aggro range and having to be resummoned.

2) Bestow divine aura and the Bard group DA song can be used to make a pet invulnerable so it can pet-pull almost any mob with no risk. This tactic is used to single pull Shyra and some other raid mobs to avoid having to do the complete script. In most cases other pulling methods can also be used, but pet pulling in this case can be the quickest and safest method.

As both of these methods allow mobs to be pulled risk free they should be stopped, however, pet-pulling in general, with its inherant risks and limitations should be retained.

To fix the problems with pet pulling the code that governs it will still need to be looked at, but instead of having a mob always use the level of the pets master to decide whether to invoke social aggro, it should only do so if the pet casts a spell at it or is currently invulnerable to damage due to a divine aura effect. If the pet is using melee attacks and is not invulnerable then the mob will invoke social aggro based on the level of the pet, as they currently do.

To avoid the problem of the inate spells cast by mage pets causing pet pulling to fail, the advanced pet discipline 2 AA should be refunded and all pet classes should get the command /pet no spell from level 1. If this were not done, then only high level mages with access to this AA would be able to pet pull.

These changes will prevent pet-pulling be abused, but allow the risky business of pet pulling with a weak melee-range only pet to continue.

I was wondering if there was any intention by beastlords in general, or our class correspondant Tastian, to protest these upcoming changes to our class?

[Jkal_Shihar]

I've pet pulled maybe once or twice. Used the wrong pet once also so make that three times. Other then that, I dont use it. Granted I dont solo as much as I use too but even when I do, I still dont use it. So in that, I wont notice it gone though, sorry if that sounds rude or what not trying it to be.
It was the same with the CH bug also for summoning pets. I didnt really pay attention to that until it was announced in a patch many moons ago. Just stuff I over look and dont really use all that much.

[Shamno]

As far as I can tell, the only ones trying to do anything about stop pet pulling from being fixed is not a class basis but the poeple who use it in those classes.

To be honest it isn't a class deemed value. Yes only certain classes can do it, but not everyone in those classes will say it is a class "fearture" or a necassary perk for the class.

To me, if it gets fixed, meh. If it doens't, again meh. It does not define the beastlord class in the least and has nothing to do with how our class should function. It just happen to be there.

It is a bug, and exploit, but wouldn't be the first of such to be in the game people have used. They fix, they don't fix them....over all these are thigns are class is not balanced on and relatively shouldn't be.

[Kroshx]

I don't use pet pulling for anything. If I'm soloing and I can't single-pull something, I either take the group and kill it, or I pass and go find something else to kill. Sadly, that doesn't work in groups. But, if I'm going to pull something you'd better be ready for a train. I don't have the patience to do it any other way.

[Shieara]

I rarely use it, however I am not thrilled about losing another tool from the toolbox.  It's getting rather empty in there.

I already sent in my concerns to Tastian and SoE, so not much else I can do except vote with my pocketbook.  Waiting to see how things go though first.

[kharthai]

I've used it lots, and am going to miss it a lot.  But it doesn't seem like it's something they're willing to let stick around any longer.

[hokarz]

I never used it, mostly because I never bought the suspend minion aa's. I let the monks and SK's pull...that's their job  :-D

[Nusa]

It's official now, pet pulling is going byebye, along with one of the FD-pullers tricks: http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=280498#M280498

Over the course of beta, we've identified and corrected a number of issues that have been around for a while but were being exacerbated by the downtime changes we are making.  There are two particular changes with the "call for help" routine that I want to draw attention to since they close loopholes that allow some questionable tactics that some of you may be using currently.  I want you to be aware that they will no longer work after our next patch to save you the potential deaths from attempting them.  These will also be in the patch notes.

   1. When most NPCs call for help, they will only call for a small, set number of NPCs to respond to keep from swarming people with dozens of NPCs at once.  There was a problem in the call for help routine that caused an NPC to not call for help again for a few seconds if it had already called for help and enough NPCs responded that they had met that maximum number the first time.  This is what was enabling the so called "tick pulling" phenomenon whereby you could aggro an entire room, drop aggro, then immediate re-aggro a single NPC and it would come alone.  This is now fixed and NPCs will now properly call for help every time they are aggro'd from a non-aggro state.
   2. With the above problem fixed, we also had to address another bug in the same area to prevent just shifting the loophole form one tactic to another.  This one had a similar effect, although for an entirely different reason.  When a player sends a pet in to attack an NPC, the NPC uses the pet's leader to determine how the NPC reacts.  In one part of the "call for help" routine, this check was missed and it was causing an NPC to not call for help if it was attacked by a green con pet of a PC.  This particular bit of code is there for NPC vs NPC combat to keep NPCs from ganging up on each other,  but the missing check for a PC leader caused it to not call for help if a PC sent a green con pet to aggro it.  This is now fixed and the NPC is properly using the pet's leader for this check as well.

Again, both of these fixes will go out with our patch next week.

Rashere

[Kroshx]

Gonna be a lot harder to empty rooms/caves now. SoE really wants to bring Chanter/Bard CC in to play, it seems. Like they don't get enough love as it is. ><

[Kanan]

yep.. I disliked doing it most times, bcs of the poor pathing in most situations, the very large risk involved if the pet died (which it often would) and just how slow, generally, a pulling method it was.

Now it is no longer a viable pulling method, and some fun, seeing what this mob here's really like, as intended (single) is no longer viable without a bard, monk, or chanter.  It really sucks.  Further slap in the face and just flat out poor job I've seen from these guys.

[jitathab]

There are loads of other unintended pulling methods, but they chose to nerf this one first.

They have really got to take a look at how ridiculous FD is. The AI of the mobs are so damn stupid that they dont hit a person who has fallen over 5 times.  When a person FD's they should start bleeding and loosing HP or something, would be much more convincing.

[Bengali]

Now people won't be able to say, "but beastlords do have utility! They can pet pull!"

Eventually maybe we'll actually end up with something to do besides look for cheesy loopholes. :)

[Bulge]

I never used it, but always figured it could be something I would use in the future. Apart from the examples that Bham describes, I do not see it as overly unblancing either, Personally, I hate to see pretty much anything go in EQ, because it's that humongous basement that EQ was built upon 8 years ago, in all innocence about the genre, that makes EQ such a great and unique game. So every feature they balance, or remove or cement shut, every NPC they take out, every imbalance that is perceived as unfair gets evened out, hurts the game a little imo.  

I canceled all my accounts anyway, but not because of this. It's the revamps and the last 4 expansions that are killing my nostalgia for this game and i realized nostalgia was the only thing that kept me playing. I can not bear to see cities like Freeport butchered up like this, or see an Ultra rare NPC like Rahotep become one of those modern-day "rares" which means he spawns once every 5 spawns and  in a static area to boot.  :roll:  That guy was a legend for me in the 7 years I played, never seen him, and now I saw him like 8 times in one session and his loot on the vendors on the Combine server.  :cry:

That is the sort of stuff that is killing EQ for me. The saddest thing is, you will not see anything like it again. Trust me, I am beta-ing a certain game that is supposed to be EQ's crown-prince, but forget it.

[Khauruk]

In it's current incarnation, pet pulling is potentially very widely abused.  The DA pet pullling was only useable every so often, so not so much, but w/ mage fire pet was just crazy.  I've had mages pull things far faster than bards/monks before.  It was fun, but crazy wrong.

I wouldn't mind the changes that the OP proposed, but it won't happen no matter how hard we lobby for it.  And really...oh well.  The only thing that it'll hurt is some trophy killing I was hoping to do (wanted to try Grieg Veneficus solo sometime).

Either way, maybe more Enchanters will dust off their character again, now that CC might have a touch of use.

[Urim]

There are loads of other unintended pulling methods, but they chose to nerf this one first.

They have really got to take a look at how ridiculous FD is. The AI of the mobs are so damn stupid that they dont hit a person who has fallen over 5 times.  When a person FD's they should start bleeding and loosing HP or something, would be much more convincing.

Come on, the one thing that i think sets us beastlords apart is the fact we don't call for nerfs of other classes. FD works the way it was intended and nothing really needs to be done about it. Lets leave other classes out of this.

While i did use the pet pull technique on occasion, i knew it should have never worked the way it did. Pet pulling was never intended, it was a direct result of a bit of faulty programming in the 'call for help routine' of NPCs and should have never been expected by anyone to stay around for as long as it did. It is not a nerf of our class because technically we should have never had this ability in the first place and anyone with sense should have seen this coming.

It's long been overdue and while i am a bit sad that i can't use this to my advantage, i won't lose a wink of sleep over it. And nobody else should either.