Guild Wars 2

As a lover of dogs, I was naturally excited to learn that there was a rune that summoned Krytan Drakehounds. So I made a Guardian, leveled him up to 80, ran the dungeon, and bought the runes.

The dog that gets summoned is fun to play and adventure with, but he dies one minute after being created. So instead of having fun with the dogs, I feel like I’m leaving a trail of dead dogs across Kryta.

This actually makes the game really depressing.

If you need to make this rune balanced, feel free to have them summoned less often or do less damage. But don’t kill them!

I actually support this. It does add a certain level of depression to this game

I would say. If you can’t handle it don’t use it. There are several other runes you can choose from.
And if you really want a Krytan Drakehound with you at all times that never dies. Make a Ranger.

I feel more depressed when I kill these harmless animals wandering around by accidents.

why not to roll a ranger? your pet will never leave your side unless you decide it so, also in jumping puzzle they like to get in your way^^

I feel depressed when I kill a bunny and can’t harvest it for bunny meat and make a nice stew…

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soistheman.7208:

I feel more depressed when I kill these harmless animals wandering around by accidents.

Really?
But those innocent, 1-shottable creatures are great sources of Life Force and Warhorn kills (Locust Swarm).

Y’know, I was playing Skyrim last night night and came across a dead dog. I opened up the console, resurrected it, and gave it god-like health and regeneration. There *IS* something about seeing a dead dog that makes my blood run cold.

To that end, I would suggest just making the dog (and anything ELSE that’s summoned out of freaking thin air) return to hammerspace/The Mists after its summon duration is up instead of just dropping dead.

Thanks for the comments!

It used to be that you could run with the pack; I decided to create this character after being in a party with someone of a similar build, and he had 3 or 4 dogs around at all times.

Unfortunately, someone early in the game apparently decided that a dog’s bite should do twice the damage of a greatsword or rifle hit.

Now obviously the game becomes unbalanced if you have 3 or 4 dogs which each do twice the damage of a greatsword.

So we’ve got two possible fixes: reduce dog bite damage to something reasonable, or start killing dogs.

I assume that this was just lazy design. I doubt there was anyone at Arenanet who said “It’s critical that dog bites do more damage than a bazooka, but our players will love watching their pet die horribly every minute!”

Unfortunately, that’s what they implemented.

I agree you probably need to play a ranger then for a perma pet. having a perma pet through runes would be unbalancing in PvP.

Kaimick, thanks for a good example of the kind of thought I’m talking about! I completely believe that you are capable of creating a game which is balanced and not fun. I hope the creators of Guild Wars have are striving to create a game which is both balanced and fun.

And that’s the point, really. There’s plenty of ways to find balance while still making it fun for players who like to run with the hounds.

I bet there is someone at ArenaNet who could make a reasonable guess right now as to the bite damage that would be fair for PvP given the rune’s 5% proc rate and the known speed and health of the hounds. I bet there’s someone else at ArenaNet who monitors PvP and can adjust bite bite damage by a few percent if players with noble runes are winning tournaments either more often or less often than their share.

It just takes a little thought to make a game which is both balanced and fun.

The question is, will players reward companies who put in that effort?

Sparkdust.1639:

The dog that gets summoned is fun to play and adventure with, but he dies one minute after being created. So instead of having fun with the dogs, I feel like I’m leaving a trail of dead dogs across Kryta.

So much lol. I’m actually going to get these runes now just to see it for myself !

I’m actually a dog lover as well, and it is fairly depressing, but now you’ve said that it’s become the forbidden fruit.

Although once I experience what you described, I’ll most likely feel the same way as you

Its not a real dog so dont call PETA just yet . It’s not like its the dog at your house that you’ve played with for years its pixels on a screen . I’m a dog lover too but i dont really care if my rangers dog dies or not cause its not real .

My ranger leaves a trail of dead oakhearts everywhere she goes. Probably if she was a silvari she’d get torn up about it.

Instead she’s a Charr. And a charr chef at that. She’s in my head right now telling me to follow you around with a grill.

...Yes its a little weird that the summoned stuff dies to despawn. It’s probably something inherent to their engine, and they might fix it so that stuff can just disappear eventually, but I’ll bet it’s not as easy as it would seem.

Greiger.7092:

…Yes its a little weird that the summoned stuff dies to despawn. It’s probably something inherent to their engine, and they might fix it so that stuff can just disappear eventually, but I’ll bet it’s not as easy as it would seem.

I’m 100% sure about that. My mesmer sometimes gets the “stuck in combat” bug that we all get at times, and my summoned clones or phantasms do persist regardless. Longest time is ever happened is when I went afk for 15 or 20 mins only to return and see my brave minions still standing by my side.

Which means summoned creatures/pets/illusions/etc work by various “coded enchantments” so there’s got to some one somewhere that lasts longer, an hour or day time limit would be fine enough not to not notice it (am just giving these two examples because I have seen them ingame on other players or npcs). Simply replace the creature summoned, link it to that rune set and you got no more dead dogs !

At least not from old age xD

The mist wolf just poofs at the end of its time. Perhaps the dogs could do that too.

Well, if you want to go with a dog all the time, you will have to make a ranger.

That’s how the mechanics of the game works, unless they added some way to have some kind of account-wide menagerie and then you could use the pets in there with any character, but as a non-fighter like miniatures.

A graveyard should pop up and the dogs should run in there to die… then the grave will go down in the earth