Guild Wars 2

Edit. After several replies, we came up with an idea that could revolutionize pets. The following is the post from in this topic.

Kaz.5430:

Ragnar.1546:

In all seriousness tho they could expand on the F2 abilities but we still need a way to retain pet control.

Personally I’d be happy with a minor tweak to the options that we already have, and would be even more happy with the additional options (in brackets).

F1 : Movement : Toggle between ‘Go to target’ and ‘Come to me’, (possibly with a ground targeted ‘Go There’ if you hold F1, pet moves on release of F1)
F2 : Attack : Pet Special Attack
F3 : Behaviour : Toggles pet behaviour between ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Passive’, (possibly adding a Guard Area option if you hold down F3)
F4 : Whistle : Swaps Pets, (possibly used for resurrecting a dead pet while held down)

Go to target on aggressive would work like F1 currently does, on passive the pet would go to the target but not attack

Pressing F1 twice while the pet is engaged (i.e. come to me, no go to target) would pull the pet of the target they are fighting and make them come to your current one

coax.2951:

While I don’t have anything against the pet as a class mechanic, it just feels lackluster at the moment.
My main problems with pets at the moment are:

- They can’t hit moving targets properly (Which could be fixed easily! Ever had a mesmer moa your pet? Suddenly it can hit moving targets without problems, since the Moa Morph autoattack has a small “leap” built into it. Don’t believe me? Just check out this neat video posted over 1.5 years ago)
- The lack of control over the pets other family specific skill, like the knockdown of the wolf pet. Having to recall your pet every time it starts the knockdown animation and then hoping it will execute it at the time you want it to just feels wrong.
- Pet stats are horrible. Just straight up horrible. What’s the point of having a few bleeds on the pet’s F2 skill, if they have no condition damage at all (or 350 at most)?

For the new class mechanic change of the druid, my money is on some kind of passive bonus you or your allies get depending on the pet family.

Completely removing the pet will definitely not happen, even if some of you guys would ditch them in a heartbeat. I’d rather see them improving pets.

Dear god….

These two ideas just fixed Rangers, seriously, put them together.

1. Melee pets attacking with a leap, so they actually hit.
2. Using F skills for placement.
—F1 Go to (Ground Target)
——If on agressive, attacks on the way and will hold position within a certain radius, 1200?
——If on passive, holds and does not attack.
——If on Guard, doesn’t attack on way, doesn’t move, but attacks when there. (Usefull for ranged pet positioning).
——If off, pet follows like normal.
—F2 Pet skill
—F3 Pet stance. Agressive, passive, guard, off.
—F4 Swap

or see also,

Wondrouswall.7169:

Adding a leap to pet attacks only solves a portion of the issues with Pets. The F1-F3 suggestions do not add much since it functions similar to “Guard!” but without the cast time or buffs.

Improving Pet QoL would have to involve 3 things:

1. Leaping attacks to increase hit chance (already covered).
2. Pet attacks cleave (at the very least the auto attacks).
3. All or 2 Pet skills are available for manual control.
4. Keybind options for pet commands.

Points 3+4 can be explained HERE on a previous suggestion.

Someone tell ANET now!

Edit. Below was the original topic.

I know pets will never be removed, but I’ve been thinking of some other Ranger-related f mechanics. Because, let’s face it, until AI is improved pets will always be shambling idiots.

Remember these would be instead of pets.

>Preparations – similar to gw1.
F1 – Read the wind. Arrows deal more damage and fly further.
F2 – Flame arrows. Arrows deal explosive damage.
F3 – Poison arrows. Arrows apply a short-lasting poison.

>Companion F skills – with animations similar to maul, serpent’s strike, or swoop. (Animals vary based on weapon equiped).
Greatsword (Avian theme)
F1 – Avian Talons. Blind foe with ferocious talons.
F2 – Eagle Eye. Remove aegis and protection to expose a weak spot.
F3 – etc
Sword (Reptile theme)
F1 – Viper. Spit a small glob of venom poisoning enemies who touch it
F2 – etc.
F3 – Offhand here.

What would you do instead of pets?

UnitedChaos.8364:

What would you do instead of pets?

Roll a different class.

Ah, if there was only another class with the exact same weapon set, skills, and utilities so it played exactly like the Ranger without a pet. Sadly, there is not… so rolling another class isn’t another option if you enjoy playing your Ranger.

I’d be fine with the aurora idea that was brought up in the CDI long ago. Choose 1 pet class for each F1-F4 and depending on the class of pet you are granted an aurora for it when you hit F1-F4. Bear family for F1 could grant aegis+resistance, cat family could grant might+fury, spiders/devourer families could grant speed+protection, and drakes family could grant might+protection, etc. to you and your allies of course. Since you still get to keep the pet aspect I could see something like this happening in a future elite spec.

I think i saw someone mention this Idea before, but cant find it. But MY wish for druids new mechanic would be:
- rework F1-4, make them into animal calls
- choose diffrent pets on those spots
- when pressing any F skills, you summon chosen pet, and it will fight with you for say 20 second, and giving a partywide boon while active
- example, F1 bear, calling out bear and giving protection.

I dunno, but this way we both have pets but dont have to be stuck with them running around all over the place 24/7. And it would be cool if you take like 4 offensive pets and chain summon them to keep like fury up all the time or something

Thats just my wish for druids elite spec.
Haters gna hate.

Reserved for kitten spelling

Ragnar.1546:

UnitedChaos.8364:

What would you do instead of pets?

Roll a different class.

+1

Guess I’m one of the weirdo’s who loves her pet… They might not always behave but when I’m not on my Ranger my other characters have mini’s to compensate for their lack of a functional companion.

It’s not a matter of loving the pet or not. It’s a matter of what can they do with the class profession changing it enough for a new elite spec while keeping the pet theme. Your Ranger will always have the pet mechanic. Don’t worry your little head, no one is taking that from you. This thread isn’t about that (and should’ve been stated in the OP) because the Ranger mechanic is not going to change, however with new Elite Specs the Ranger class mechanic will change, whether you like it or not. So, it’s a matter of just how much the Ranger class mechanic will change with other expansions/feature packs.

Ragnar.1546:

UnitedChaos.8364:

What would you do instead of pets?

Roll a different class.

Thank you for your insightful and intelligent reply. “Roll a different class” would make an awesome F mechanic. Great job.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

+1

Guess I’m one of the weirdo’s who loves her pet… They might not always behave but when I’m not on my Ranger my other characters have mini’s to compensate for their lack of a functional companion.

I love my pet too, sometimes.

@dECA Think that idea of mulitple pets/pet attunements might have been mine. It’s that the ranger pet mechanic is not going anywhere. It’s also true specializations will bring change. However, from the precedent of the released specializations, I think it can be safe to say we won’t get a complete overhaul into something different.

UnitedChaos.8364:

Ragnar.1546:

UnitedChaos.8364:

What would you do instead of pets?

Roll a different class.

Thank you for your insightful and intelligent reply. “Roll a different class” would make an awesome F mechanic. Great job.

Ranger is the pet class. Necro doesn’t count so much as one because it’s ok to kill your pets and two “most” builds don’t use minions due to their problems. So why would ANet go back on their word that the removal of our pet isn’t an option? Hence my response.

Besides we’ve had posts about people wanting to dump their pets for some sort of design change. Some of the times these ideas aren’t bad but what’s the point? The design is for the Ranger to be pet oriented; what they need to do is improve the pet AI/further tweak response times and problem is solved.

But for those who still don’t like pets… Roll a different class.

Ragnar.1546:

UnitedChaos.8364:

Ragnar.1546:

UnitedChaos.8364:

What would you do instead of pets?

Roll a different class.

Thank you for your insightful and intelligent reply. “Roll a different class” would make an awesome F mechanic. Great job.

Ranger is the pet class. Necro doesn’t count so much as one because it’s ok to kill your pets and two “most” builds don’t use minions due to their problems. So why would ANet go back on their word that the removal of our pet isn’t an option? Hence my response.

Besides we’ve had posts about people wanting to dump their pets for some sort of design change. Some of the times these ideas aren’t bad but what’s the point? The design is for the Ranger to be pet oriented; what they need to do is improve the pet AI/further tweak response times and problem is solved.

But for those who still don’t like pets… Roll a different class.

You must be a blast at parties…

UnitedChaos.8364:

I know pets will never be removed, but I’ve been thinking of some other Ranger-related f mechanics…

What would you do instead of pets?

dECA.2370:

I think i saw someone mention this Idea before, but cant find it. But MY wish for druids new mechanic would be:
- rework F1-4, make them into animal calls
- choose diffrent pets on those spots
- when pressing any F skills, you summon chosen pet, and it will fight with you for say 20 second, and giving a partywide boon while active
- example, F1 bear, calling out bear and giving protection.

I dunno, but this way we both have pets but dont have to be stuck with them running around all over the place 24/7. And it would be cool if you take like 4 offensive pets and chain summon them to keep like fury up all the time or something

Thats just my wish for druids elite spec.
Haters gna hate.

Reserved for kitten spelling

Cool idea.

UnitedChaos.8364:

Cool idea.

ye i really hope we get something that feels diffrent, i mean, necro is becoming a melee beast. why wouldnt we get something “different” even tho it could involve pets.

would like if they made us like staff ele, but with nature spells and beast summons
wellwell.. maybe we will find out in 2017 or something

UnitedChaos.8364:

Ragnar.1546:

UnitedChaos.8364:

Ragnar.1546:

UnitedChaos.8364:

What would you do instead of pets?

Roll a different class.

Thank you for your insightful and intelligent reply. “Roll a different class” would make an awesome F mechanic. Great job.

Ranger is the pet class. Necro doesn’t count so much as one because it’s ok to kill your pets and two “most” builds don’t use minions due to their problems. So why would ANet go back on their word that the removal of our pet isn’t an option? Hence my response.

Besides we’ve had posts about people wanting to dump their pets for some sort of design change. Some of the times these ideas aren’t bad but what’s the point? The design is for the Ranger to be pet oriented; what they need to do is improve the pet AI/further tweak response times and problem is solved.

But for those who still don’t like pets… Roll a different class.

You must be a blast at parties…

UnitedChaos.8364:

I know pets will never be removed, but I’ve been thinking of some other Ranger-related f mechanics…

What would you do instead of pets?

Oh I didn’t realize this was a party. In that case…

F1: Pet dawns beer helmet and takes a sip of the sweet nectar. Increases attack speed and might.
F2: Pet wheels in exploding beer kegs. 1200 radius burning 3 seconds.
F3: Pet brings out bong. Forces all foes within 600 radius to take a hit. All foes are dazed for 2 seconds. Confusion applied for 5 seconds after daze breaks.

In all seriousness tho they could expand on the F2 abilities but we still need a way to retain pet control.

Ragnar.1546:

In all seriousness tho they could expand on the F2 abilities but we still need a way to retain pet control.

Personally I’d be happy with a minor tweak to the options that we already have, and would be even more happy with the additional options (in brackets).

F1 : Movement : Toggle between ‘Go to target’ and ‘Come to me’, (possibly with a ground targeted ‘Go There’ if you hold F1, pet moves on release of F1)
F2 : Attack : Pet Special Attack
F3 : Behaviour : Toggles pet behaviour between ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Passive’, (possibly adding a Guard Area option if you hold down F3)
F4 : Whistle : Swaps Pets, (possibly used for resurrecting a dead pet while held down)

Go to target on aggressive would work like F1 currently does, on passive the pet would go to the target but not attack

Pressing F1 twice while the pet is engaged (i.e. come to me, no go to target) would pull the pet of the target they are fighting and make them come to your current one

While I don’t have anything against the pet as a class mechanic, it just feels lackluster at the moment.
My main problems with pets at the moment are:

- They can’t hit moving targets properly (Which could be fixed easily! Ever had a mesmer moa your pet? Suddenly it can hit moving targets without problems, since the Moa Morph autoattack has a small “leap” built into it. Don’t believe me? Just check out this neat video posted over 1.5 years ago)
- The lack of control over the pets other family specific skill, like the knockdown of the wolf pet. Having to recall your pet every time it starts the knockdown animation and then hoping it will execute it at the time you want it to just feels wrong.
- Pet stats are horrible. Just straight up horrible. What’s the point of having a few bleeds on the pet’s F2 skill, if they have no condition damage at all (or 350 at most)?

For the new class mechanic change of the druid, my money is on some kind of passive bonus you or your allies get depending on the pet family.

Completely removing the pet will definitely not happen, even if some of you guys would ditch them in a heartbeat. I’d rather see them improving pets.

Kaz.5430:

Ragnar.1546:

In all seriousness tho they could expand on the F2 abilities but we still need a way to retain pet control.

Personally I’d be happy with a minor tweak to the options that we already have, and would be even more happy with the additional options (in brackets).

F1 : Movement : Toggle between ‘Go to target’ and ‘Come to me’, (possibly with a ground targeted ‘Go There’ if you hold F1, pet moves on release of F1)
F2 : Attack : Pet Special Attack
F3 : Behaviour : Toggles pet behaviour between ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Passive’, (possibly adding a Guard Area option if you hold down F3)
F4 : Whistle : Swaps Pets, (possibly used for resurrecting a dead pet while held down)

Go to target on aggressive would work like F1 currently does, on passive the pet would go to the target but not attack

Pressing F1 twice while the pet is engaged (i.e. come to me, no go to target) would pull the pet of the target they are fighting and make them come to your current one

coax.2951:

While I don’t have anything against the pet as a class mechanic, it just feels lackluster at the moment.
My main problems with pets at the moment are:

- They can’t hit moving targets properly (Which could be fixed easily! Ever had a mesmer moa your pet? Suddenly it can hit moving targets without problems, since the Moa Morph autoattack has a small “leap” built into it. Don’t believe me? Just check out this neat video posted over 1.5 years ago)
- The lack of control over the pets other family specific skill, like the knockdown of the wolf pet. Having to recall your pet every time it starts the knockdown animation and then hoping it will execute it at the time you want it to just feels wrong.
- Pet stats are horrible. Just straight up horrible. What’s the point of having a few bleeds on the pet’s F2 skill, if they have no condition damage at all (or 350 at most)?

For the new class mechanic change of the druid, my money is on some kind of passive bonus you or your allies get depending on the pet family.

Completely removing the pet will definitely not happen, even if some of you guys would ditch them in a heartbeat. I’d rather see them improving pets.

Dear god….

These two ideas just fixed Rangers, seriously, put them together.

1. Melee pets attacking with a leap, so they actually hit.
2. Using F skills for placement.
—F1 Go to (Ground Target)
——If on agressive, attacks on the way and will hold position within a certain radius, 1200?
——If on passive, holds and does not attack.
——If on Guard, doesn’t attack on way, doesn’t move, but attacks when there. (Usefull for ranged pet positioning).
——If off, pet follows like normal.
—F2 Pet skill
—F3 Pet stance. Agressive, passive, guard, off.
—F4 Swap

Someone tell ANET now!

Great video explaining moa morph, by the way.

Adding a leap to pet attacks only solves a portion of the issues with Pets. The F1-F3 suggestions do not add much since it functions similar to “Guard!” but without the cast time or buffs.

Improving Pet QoL would have to involve 4 things:

1. Leaping attacks to increase hit chance (already covered).
2. Pet attacks cleave (at the very least the auto attacks).
3. All or 2 Pet skills are available for manual control.
4. Keybind options for pet commands.

Points 3+4 can be explained HERE on a previous suggestion.

Edit: Started out as 3 points but split the third.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Adding a leap to pet attacks only solves a portion of the issues with Pets. The F1-F3 suggestions do not add much since it functions similar to “Guard!” but without the cast time or buffs.

Improving Pet QoL would have to involve 3 things:

1. Leaping attacks to increase hit chance (already covered).
2. Pet attacks cleave (at the very least the auto attacks).
3. All or 2 Pet skills are available for manual control.
4. Keybind options for pet commands.

Points 3+4 can be explained HERE on a previous suggestion.

Nice!
+1

I like the pet leap idea, as long as it doesn’t result in them having a cast time on that leap. Give pets our Sword AA that doesn’t allowing interrupting the animation with dodges … is fine since pets don’t dodge.

Pet attacks cleave … yes. I think this should have been done since release.

I’m all for more control over my character and my pets are part of my character, so I’m all for additional control over my pets’ skills.

Keybind options for controls are duh :-p

These would definitely be nice and I’d be happy with any/all of these.

The only concern I have is people’s ability to get a pet off of them. They should still be able to kite a pet somehow. How would you balance that if the pet has the leap? If you don’t balance that, then the pet becomes a very high damage DoT that can only be stopped via considerable damage which will simply result in the Ranger swapping to their other pet.

While I love for my pet to eat faces, I do want it to be balanced :-) I prefer to play my class, not it play me … hence why I rarely play Guardian :-p

The leap portion (at least from the Polymorph Moa skills) comes from it’s extended range. Currently, Birds have this since some of their melee attacks have a 300 range compared to 130 range (found most commonly on melee pets).

Polymorph Moa melee attacks are set at 250 range, except the Kick move, which is 600. Taking that into account, extending the melee pet attacks that are currently at 130 to 180 would be (I guess) fair and balanced. Can’t say for sure without actual testing.

Currently, with behaviour toggle not bound to one of the function keys and requiring a mouse click, then it can’t be as useful as it ‘could’ be.

But regardless of the extra (on hold) options I suggested, if F3 was merged into F1 allowing behaviour toggle to be on F3, then that would open up a host of additional possibilities that can relate to making behaviour toggle more important.

For example:

When in passive mode, pets could provide a pulsing AoE boon or attribute boost to make up for the fact that they are not attacking.

Also, with behaviour toggle promoted to a fully fledge Ranger ‘function’, they could take pet skill number 3 and bind it to F2 passive mode, while leaving the original F2 skill bound to F2 in aggressive mode.

On the leap discussion, would adding a functional ‘leap’ be required if the auto-attack for melee pets was instead increased to 600 range? I imagine that adding ‘leap’ functionality and changing animations etc would be a lot more complex that just changing the value for the range?

[edit]

Oh yeah, I also thought of a ‘hold’ F2 function (basically so that all F keys had a hold feature).

F2 clicked, would work like it currently does and the pet would run to it’s target (if it has one) before triggering the skill. It would be modified so that pet would also run to player before triggering f2 if in the middle of a return to me.

F2 held down could override that, causing the pet to trigger instantly on release, regardless or whether it has arrived at target or not.

No, it would not be complicated at all nor would it require animation changes. If you view the video linked to the skills while affected by Polymorph Moa, it performs a “snap” towards the target and does the animation while connecting the hit as long as the target is within range.

Animation-wise, it looks awkward since the pet could be the full range away from a target and yet still connect with the hit. This is something Rangers have been asking for but as Sebrent pointed out, it needs to be balanced.

250 range on Polymorph is more than enough range. An increase of 50 radius (130 to 180) isn’t much and I doubt the ‘leap’ portion of the snap is noticeable – just look at how our Bird’s auto attack performs with a 300 range. As I said previously, the ‘leap’ is already present on our birds, thus, why they are able to connect so well with moving targets.

All that needs to be done is modify the range on the rest of the pets’ melee attacks a bit to accommodate. It would be, by far, the easiest and fastest way Anet could improve pet QoL without doing animation or mechanic overhauls.

The more I think about it, the more I think a leap isn’t so much necessary as is simply an increase to their melee range. I don’t know if increasing it to 180 would be sufficient, but it’d be a nice start.

The wonderful thing about this is, if they coded it right, it should be an easy tweak to make and play around with.

Easy tweak translates to easier balancing and less susceptible to bugs. That is preferable to having to implement leaps.

If it were me, I would just make the pets attacks do PBAoE damage instead of having to physically hit with the attack.

@Heimskarl: Heck, why not … I’ve never done the comparison, but my intuition tells me that the hit detection for that would take less CPU cycles than it would for a non-circular attack … if unclear, I’m assuming the PBAOE would just be a sphere from the current location of the pet.

Yup, make the pet do the attack animation and damage 3 targets in an 80 radius around it or something.

I think 80 is far too small. Current attack ranges are 130. To account for targets moving, I like the earlier idea of increasing the range. 180 or 240 could be good starting places … though if someone could analyze how quickly someone can move with Swiftness in 0.5 second and 1.0 second, we could have a much better idea.

The Moa AA is a 250 range skill, so 240 would be nice

Wait … what?!

I never bothered to look at the range on the Moa’s. Between their lackluster (to me) stats and cast times on their F2s along with boon duration versus cooldown … I never paid much attention to them.

I think you just pointed out some testing that needs to be done … though I think I recall them having more of an attack animation problem than others … we’ll see. Been a while since I pulled out a Moa for any reason other than screwing around.

I believe he means the Moa moves on Polymorph. Our actual Moa pet has the same melee range of 130 on it’s auto attack and Frenzied Attack. Also, a small PBAOE attack is currently on Drake auto attacks, thus, why they can hit up to 3 targets, even when some are directly behind it.

Anet already has some of our suggestions in place, the extended melee range to “snap” to targets are on birds, and small PBAOE cleaving attacks on Drakes. As to why they won’t implement them onto other pets, well…

I believe you’re right because when I looked at my Moa pets it was only 130 and my inquisitive nature cried a bit inside … nothing to play with.

Aye, you have a good point there Wondrous. If the Specialization system coming out tells us anything it’s that ArenaNet is good at keeping their yappers shut till they want to tell us what they have in store … perhaps they will be surprising the heck out of us soon with the Ranger reveals :-) … one can hope. If nothing else we’re promised Traps, Spirits, Druid, Staff, and the new Specialization System … all sorts of good newness

Aye, Wond is right, I meant the moa morph moa AA.

Pets just need better target tracking and responsive AI as well as revamped auto attacks with built in leap. Wanna see what proper pet AI looks like (granted these still fall prey to occasional environment pathing while not in combat):

Notice at the end when the pet not only tracks the boss flawlessly and lands most of the hits…but the boss is RUNNING ON THE WALL and the pet can still land hits when it dismounts within seconds. THAT is the kind of responsiveness we need in a game where players dodge and move erratically. There are more videos that show how a leap type auto attack helps with tracking moving targets, just google it. I think the main point im making is, the pets don’t need fixing, they just need all new AI coding all together. And I remember hearing Anet was bringing in an AI specialist so hoepfully he’s going to do some serious overhaul on ranger pets.