Guild Wars 2

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Hello guys,
I post here part of my work I did today, working on release my ideas in final of CDI topic.
This is about 30% of my final work. It will be later released in graphic form.
For now, I’ve described one of most interesting things in my belief – Profession Mechanic.

If you have any suggestions or opinions regarding this, please share them before I post everything in the CDI.
Thanks!

" F1 key:
-Pressed once, sends pet to attack foe
-Pressed again on the same foe or without target, calls pet back
-Pressed and held, allows ground-targeted relocation of the pet, making it move to certain location upon releasing the F1 key. Pet will stay on targeted position and continue to attack/avoid combat until you:
a)press and hold F1 button again or
b)tap F1 twice quickly
With these actions, pet resets it’s location and returns to you.

F2 key:
-Bound with Symbiosis mechanic
-Defined by specific pet’s abilities
-Customizable out of combat: Each pet has two characteristic Symbiosis special abilities which you may choose same like Character’s utilities

F3 key:
-“Racial” Pet abilities, shared between each pet of same type (Drakes, Birds etc.). Accompanied with Cooldown, non-customizable

F4 key
-Press once to switch between two avalible pets
-Pet swap cooldown in combat (current)
-Press and hold to start reviving pet and make it possible so for allies. Channeled. Requires being stationary by default. Doesn’t swap the pet upon releasing the key, putting swap on short (1 sec ICD) cooldown to prevent missclicking.

Stances unchanged.

Pets move 30% faster by default and take 75% less damage from AoE effects (Damage reducement from conditions included, Conditions affect pet e.g. Chill affects Pet’s Cooldowns

Pet Traits
Avalible in Pet control panel [K]

Total of 4 points, each unlocked after 20 levels :
-Level 20, 40, 60, 80

4 Categories:

1. Aggressive – DPS tree, based on Direct Damage attacks and attack improvements. After evolving twice in this line, your pet gets more Precision and it’s attacks scale better with Power, Pet’s statistics scale with your Power and Critical Damage statistics.
2. Dire – Condition tree, based on Condition Damage and Duration and attack improvements.
After evolving twice in this line, your pet gets more Precision and gains Condition effects to it’s attacks, Pet’s statistics scale with your Condition Damage and Condition Duration statistics.
3. Hearty – Defensive tree, based on defense and protecting master and his allies and attack improvements.
After evolving twice in this line, your pet gets more Vitality and gains supportive effects to it’s attacks, Pet’s statistics scale with your Toughness and Healing Power statistics.
4. Elder – Utility tree, based on various support/crowd control/utility improvements, affecting Symbiosis.
After evolving twice in this line, your pet gets reduced cooldowns on F3 abilities and it’s attacks generate more Symbiosis. F2 abilities require less Symbiosis to activate.

Each tree has place for one trick, which you may choose out of three in each line. You can evolve pet with only 2 points put in each tree.
First point unlocks trait, second is direct buff to the pet’s statictics and his behaviour/scaling/attacks.

Traits can be various. I suggest moving all “Pet” traits like Malicious, Vigorous Training here in addition to other, new traits.

Trait reset-able any time out of combat and based on Pet’s Type/Race/Kind (Drake, Bird etc.)

Examples:
Hearty – II – “Never Rampage Alone” – You can now revive your pet while in move (F4)
Elder – I – “Predatory Bond” – Increases your maximum Symbiosis value by 10.
Aggressive – III – “Otyugh’s Cry” – Your pet’s next attack after using Pet’s Symbiotic Attack (F2) is unblockable.

Symbiosis

New mechanic.
Resource. Small pool-type (similar to Demon Hunter’s from D3 Discipline/Hatred pool), located near Action Bar, presented as icon, filling, with my idea, similar to Attached Icon.

The idea behind Symbiosis is very simple.
It’s a resource, used to activate Pet’s F2 special abilities and Ranger’s special attacks upon “press and hold” #1 attacks on each weapon. These attacks and abilities have no cooldown.
It’s being filled during the fight, by both Pet’s and Player’s attacks. It’s possible to fill the pool with Pet’s or Player’s attacks only, but it obviously takes longer. Maxiumum of 20 Symbiosis points basic.
All Symbiosis is lost when either you die or you swap your pet and it slowly expires when out of combat.

For Weapon’s Symbiotic attacks, longer you hold them, better and more expensive they are (you can hold them up to 2 stages).
For most of weapons, Symbiotic attacks are not heavy-hitting skills, but more like a utility/trick abilities."

So pressing F1 once sets them to attack, press it again, it will return, hold it and it will go to another location to avoid AOE? I’m on my phone , I just might’ve missunderstood it. Otherwise this seams excellent IMO. Although, sadly I wouldn’t bring my hopes up for the racial spell.

Not sure what ANet would think of that.

MasterKitty.8205:

So pressing F1 once sets them to attack, press it again, it will return, hold it and it will go to another location to avoid AOE? I’m on my phone , I just might’ve missunderstood it. Otherwise this seams excellent IMO. Although, sadly I wouldn’t bring my hopes up for the racial spell.

Not sure what ANet would think of that.

The work is still in progress because I’d like to post T
;dr in CDI with full CDI Project downloadable in format of Power point or graphics/project map. I hope I’ll be able to finish it this week.

As for F1, F4 etc… Yes, they have multiple functions.
Currently we have two very simple keys for typical macroable actions and it’s still no very precise nor it has pet positioning.

My first goal is to free up space and make it more logical. In the way I want it, as described, every pet movement action besides leaping and combat movement is under one key.

Pet positioning is the key in here: simple, yet combined in combat can be measure of good micromanagement skill.
Let’s say, You run a drake as your pet. One of my “Symbiotic” pet f2 abilities you chose is an attack with combo blast finisher on use.
Your elementalist drops some water field away from the foe. In normal, current scenario your Drake would use Tail Swipe randomly and only when fighting the enemy toe2toe.
In my scenario, you quickly press and hold f1, marking place where you want your drake to be – on top of field. It responds quickly, moving fast towards the water field (with built-in 30%+ speed for better responsiveness).
Once it reaches the point, without inteerupting your attack (as it would be with “Guard”) you command him to spent avalible Symbiosis on 2 or 3 Blast Finisher moves. After it does it, you target the enemy, tap f1 three times quickly and your drake returns to fighting.

I like it. I will be following this post closely.

I like everything. I don’t even care what the specifics are so much, I just like the improvements to pets.

The biggest improvement would be allowing them to attack while moving, but apparently that is not possible without changing the game engine? Maybe the animation could stay the same but just reduce the pet attack time to like .1 second. Or double their melee attack range.

If I may make the recommendation…

Take this section:
a)press and hold F1 button again or
b)tap F1 twice quickly
With these actions, pet resets it’s location and returns to you.

And change it to:
To remove pet from set location, either press F1 while targetting to attack target, or F1 while not targetting to return to you. Or hold F1 to set new location.

To me, that’s a little more intuitive, and means that the F1 key always has the same function no matter what the pet is currently doing. Which is pretty important, I think. It will also make a big difference in the heat of battle, cause it will take less clicks to get the pet to do what you want.

Otherwise, I think this reads pretty well, and would give me the sort of control I’m looking for from a pet class.

firelightx.3980:

If I may make the recommendation…

Take this section:
a)press and hold F1 button again or
b)tap F1 twice quickly
With these actions, pet resets it’s location and returns to you.

And change it to:
To remove pet from set location, either press F1 while targetting to attack target, or F1 while not targetting to return to you. Or hold F1 to set new location.

To me, that’s a little more intuitive, and means that the F1 key always has the same function no matter what the pet is currently doing. Which is pretty important, I think. It will also make a big difference in the heat of battle, cause it will take less clicks to get the pet to do what you want.

Otherwise, I think this reads pretty well, and would give me the sort of control I’m looking for from a pet class.

There’s just one issue I’m aware of when making this.
If, let’s say, I have a pet with ranged attacks, or I want to place my pet in a spot safe from AoE, I may still want to make it attack.

Let’s say, you have a spider and want to place it on some hill, and then make it attack. It’s still able to do it.
Or some melee pet like Jaguar and there’s a boss which does some attacks in cones. You locate pet in range for attacking the boss and between/away from damage cones.

With your suggestion I could only relocate my pet and call it back after threat is gone

The pool based attack trick is a good idea, is like initiative should be, you charge it while fighting, if you dont fight you lose all the points.

I’ll spoil one more thing :

Pet damage overall takes a hit. Most of bleed application from attacks from boars, cats gets removed.
I redesign some pets however to be more condition-oriented, you can also make your pet a good source of conditions by evolving it into Dire.

But my main goal is to utilize Symbiosis.
Symbiosis attack are a real truck in here. I designed large chunk of Beastmastery tree around Symbiosis also. These attacks (not every1, but you have a choice!) tend to apply various powerful effects, damage, condition. You want your pet to execute them often, so both of you – Player and Pet – have to do something to get smooth Symbiosis flow. I also bound many traits with Symbiosis itself, like presented in here (unblockable after symbiosis attack, temporary damage boost after f2, attack speed boost). It applies also to other side – Player’s Symbiotic attacks.

nother thing – when I move to more active pets, I also reduce the passive damage they output to be (without BM/speccing) around 10-15% of Ranger’s total damage and move the lost percentages to Ranger character.
You see, I see pets as more Utility and mechanic than some random NPC running around. I want them to burst on my command, move on my command and aid me when I need it. If I desire, I can make them killing machines also. But not passive killers, acting as separated NPC, but part of the class which needs my part to perform to the best.

Rym.1469:

firelightx.3980:

If I may make the recommendation…

Take this section:
a)press and hold F1 button again or
b)tap F1 twice quickly
With these actions, pet resets it’s location and returns to you.

And change it to:
To remove pet from set location, either press F1 while targetting to attack target, or F1 while not targetting to return to you. Or hold F1 to set new location.

To me, that’s a little more intuitive, and means that the F1 key always has the same function no matter what the pet is currently doing. Which is pretty important, I think. It will also make a big difference in the heat of battle, cause it will take less clicks to get the pet to do what you want.

Otherwise, I think this reads pretty well, and would give me the sort of control I’m looking for from a pet class.

There’s just one issue I’m aware of when making this.
If, let’s say, I have a pet with ranged attacks, or I want to place my pet in a spot safe from AoE, I may still want to make it attack.

Let’s say, you have a spider and want to place it on some hill, and then make it attack. It’s still able to do it.
Or some melee pet like Jaguar and there’s a boss which does some attacks in cones. You locate pet in range for attacking the boss and between/away from damage cones.

With your suggestion I could only relocate my pet and call it back after threat is gone

Depends on how you design the AI, I suppose (of course we all know what track record we’re working with, there…)

If you’re using a ranged pet and have it set to guard an area, setting it to attack someone should mean that it atacks from whereever its standing. If it can’t reach from where it’s standing, it will chase.

With melee pets, the same thing. If you use this ‘guard’ mechanic to move it out of the cone, you can A) set the guard area to still include the boss, or hit ‘attack’ and it will rush straight to the boss. As long as your guard placement is correct, rushing to the boss should still keep it out of the cone, since it’s just a straight line from guard location to the boss.

My thought is more that it doesn’t work as “Guard!”. Pet does not run around area or chase. It strictly sticks to the point you wanted it to be and try to do all actions from there.

Rim, you should post this in the CDI post.

Bump, as it will be continued, redesigned and finished in near future.

Key incoming changes:

1. Pets take 90% less damage and regenerate 1% (2% PvE) of their health every 2 seconds. All condition applied to pets are full-duration, although their damage is lowered by 90%. Movement-impairing conditions are of the same strenght, but reduced by 50% duration by default.

• Targeted * When Pet is set as Target for Player/NPC it looses it’s damage reduction and health regeneration, gaining undispellable debuff “Targeted” visible as a small red icon above Pet’s portrait. During the debuff, all condition damage done by targeting foe is regular damage.
  Debuff lasts until the Pet is swapped, downed or distargeted.

2. Pet’s health value is now filling it’s portrait with red colour to top (100% health) from bottom (0% health). When pet is downed/being rezzed the colour is orange.

3. Left from the portrait, is the place for Boon/Condition/Debuff affecting your pet in form of regular icons.

4. Old Pet’s health bar is now Symbiosis mechanic bar, charged with green colour. There are also 3 splits (25%,50%,75%) on bar for better visibility. Number of resource avalible is displayed on bar by default. The maximum value of Symbiosis is up to discuss, as the numbers are not yet tuned properly.

5. Symbiosis abilities are no longer charged, they have one value for each weapon/F2.

6. Using same Symbiosis ability more frequently than once ( every X seconds/not interrupted by using Pet’s/Player’s different Symbiosis ability – up for discussion ) for one weapon/pet enables debuff Exhaustion .

7. Exhaustion increases the resource cost of using same ability by X% and decreases Symbiosis generation by X% for X seconds/other condition (up to discussion).

• X – unknown number, yet to be tuned.

8. Pet’s basic damage is further reduced, allowing AI designers to improve Pet’s attack connection without making it too strong.

I like the application of multiple roles for each F key. +1

I enjoy all these ideas. Particularly the improved level of control of the pet’s movement and location, and more ability to command the pet to use it’s special abilities. I also love the idea of giving pets their own mini trait build that lets each player customize their pet on a small scale.

No to having select-able pet f2 abilities. The reason is you want players to know what they are up against. If you run into a ranger with a canine, but you have no idea what traits or skills that pet is running, you’re already at a disadvantage. This is why they made the changes to PvP to make it easier to tell what animation is being cast and make all skins models consistent.

No to pet evolution. This isn’t Pokemon. The pet’s leveling system in Gw1 was a pain and pretty much useless. Each pet currently has it’s only individual stats which already makes it “dire” or “hearty”; it doesn’t need to level up.

Yes to better pet controls.

You would only choose between two avalible F2 abilities for every pet.

It’s not really that different from switching utilities. Most of the time, you don’t know what your enemy carries on his bar.

I believe GW2 doesn’t aspire to be strict esport like MOBA, heck, it’s not even possible. Besides, F2 would be used way more often than F3 abilities for example, so not knowing which one is it wouldn’t hurt that much for the first time.

Now, “Pimp My Pet” isn’t so necessary. But I like some customization. Currently we have tons of “pet” traits scattered around trait lines. I’d like them in one place, as pet traits and open up space for other traits. Currently, many feel about specific “pet traits” as bad just because they take precious slot place. Separated from the player however, different story.
Players also do ask for more “stat choosing/sharing” for pets. Without some kinds of avalible stat influence, some pet will always be lacking.

finaly ONE guy around here who is actualy caring about ranger pets other then to stow them into oblivion this must reach the eyes of the dev and be applicated right away i mean come on why not actualy grants our furry animals the love they always deserved.

Just the agressive and dire option is an improvement but that symbiosis thing looks wonderfull and im not talking about stat scaling wich is a dream coming true (finaly a freaking pet build that actualy does dps and isnt called (i buff myself and pet is an accessory)

Heal as one!
Never rampage alone!

Rym.1469:

Bump, as it will be continued, redesigned and finished in near future.

Key incoming changes:

1. Pets take 90% less damage and regenerate 1% (2% PvE) of their health every 2 seconds. All condition applied to pets are full-duration, although their damage is lowered by 90%. Movement-impairing conditions are of the same strenght, but reduced by 50% duration by default.

• Targeted * When Pet is set as Target for Player/NPC it looses it’s damage reduction and health regeneration, gaining undispellable debuff “Targeted” visible as a small red icon above Pet’s portrait. During the debuff, all condition damage done by targeting foe is regular damage.
  Debuff lasts until the Pet is swapped, downed or distargeted.

Lemme just target the pet to nerf it instantly. Should be something like “Pet receives only 50% of incoming damage for 7 seconds when entering combat or swapped. Does not apply if swapping out a pet that has more than 25% health.”

2. Pet’s health value is now filling it’s portrait with red colour to top (100% health) from bottom (0% health). When pet is downed/being rezzed the colour is orange.

I’d personally like to have a bar that displays exact health so that I can time my swaps to the last second!

3. Left from the portrait, is the place for Boon/Condition/Debuff affecting your pet in form of regular icons.

Why not… It would be useful.

4. Old Pet’s health bar is now Symbiosis mechanic bar, charged with green colour. There are also 3 splits (25%,50%,75%) on bar for better visibility. Number of resource avalible is displayed on bar by default. The maximum value of Symbiosis is up to discuss, as the numbers are not yet tuned properly.

Why not just add a second bar?

5. Symbiosis abilities are no longer charged, they have one value for each weapon/F2.

Does that mean symbiosis expires when I swap weapons?

6. Using same Symbiosis ability more frequently than once ( every X seconds/not interrupted by using Pet’s/Player’s different Symbiosis ability – up for discussion ) for one weapon/pet enables debuff Exhaustion .

This assumes that the ability doesn’t have a cooldown and can be spamming

7. Exhaustion increases the resource cost of using same ability by X% and decreases Symbiosis generation by X% for X seconds/other condition (up to discussion).

• X – unknown number, yet to be tuned.

Cleanse “Exhausted” by swapping?

8. Pet’s basic damage is further reduced, allowing AI designers to improve Pet’s attack connection without making it too strong.

No, please no. Try to improve the pet mechanic instead of compromising. It can be done through giving each new thing a consequence.

Commented. (With bold inside the qoutation)

My suggestion for F1:
The F1 button toggles between red and green color. When it’s green, the next press will issue an attack command. When it’s green, the next press will issue a return command. The return command applies 3 seconds of evasion to the pet, with an ICD of 12 seconds. The attack command applies 5 seconds of swiftness, this shares the ICD with the return command’s bonus.

F2 – As is with a slight change. If the F1 button is green, F2 will be used without a target or won’t be used at all if it’s a single-target attack. If red, then the F2 skill will be used on the pet’s current target, not the ranger’s current target.

F3 – Symbiosis skill.

(PS.: Nice necro-posting!)

Didn’t even look like it but I somewhat like the changes altrought im not so happy with stuff like.

Pet loose dps.

but long as it recover that same dps trought scaling etc I wouldn’t mind the base pet to have weaker damage for non speced rangers that way we have less bunkers around here relying on pet to deal what they cannot. Im in favor of the scaling pet with master principe wich would put an end to the ‘’I tank and deal damage at the same time cuz pet isn’t tied to me’’ joke. Im zerker so should be my pet.

solrik.6028:

Rym.1469:

1. Pets take 90% less damage and regenerate 1% (2% PvE) of their health every 2 seconds. All condition applied to pets are full-duration, although their damage is lowered by 90%. Movement-impairing conditions are of the same strenght, but reduced by 50% duration by default.

• Targeted * When Pet is set as Target for Player/NPC it looses it’s damage reduction and health regeneration, gaining undispellable debuff “Targeted” visible as a small red icon above Pet’s portrait. During the debuff, all condition damage done by targeting foe is regular damage.
  Debuff lasts until the Pet is swapped, downed or distargeted.

Lemme just target the pet to nerf it instantly. Should be something like “Pet receives only 50% of incoming damage for 7 seconds when entering combat or swapped. Does not apply if swapping out a pet that has more than 25% health.”

2. Pet’s health value is now filling it’s portrait with red colour to top (100% health) from bottom (0% health). When pet is downed/being rezzed the colour is orange.

I’d personally like to have a bar that displays exact health so that I can time my swaps to the last second!

4. Old Pet’s health bar is now Symbiosis mechanic bar, charged with green colour. There are also 3 splits (25%,50%,75%) on bar for better visibility. Number of resource avalible is displayed on bar by default. The maximum value of Symbiosis is up to discuss, as the numbers are not yet tuned properly.

Why not just add a second bar?

5. Symbiosis abilities are no longer charged, they have one value for each weapon/F2.

Does that mean symbiosis expires when I swap weapons?

6. Using same Symbiosis ability more frequently than once ( every X seconds/not interrupted by using Pet’s/Player’s different Symbiosis ability – up for discussion ) for one weapon/pet enables debuff Exhaustion .

This assumes that the ability doesn’t have a cooldown and can be spamming

7. Exhaustion increases the resource cost of using same ability by X% and decreases Symbiosis generation by X% for X seconds/other condition (up to discussion).

• X – unknown number, yet to be tuned.

Cleanse “Exhausted” by swapping?

8. Pet’s basic damage is further reduced, allowing AI designers to improve Pet’s attack connection without making it too strong.

No, please no. Try to improve the pet mechanic instead of compromising. It can be done through giving each new thing a consequence.

Commented. (With bold inside the qoutation)

My suggestion for F1:
The F1 button toggles between red and green color. When it’s green, the next press will issue an attack command. When it’s green, the next press will issue a return command. The return command applies 3 seconds of evasion to the pet, with an ICD of 12 seconds. The attack command applies 5 seconds of swiftness, this shares the ICD with the return command’s bonus.

1.It doesn’t “nerf” the pet in any way. It just makes it accessible to kill if you want to focus it down. Doesn’t shave any of DPS or stats. Just the buff.

2. The numbers are still there. It’s only that now pet’s portrait instead of being just a graphic is also a visual information.

4. I want to keep UI as simple as possible. Two filling resources wouldn’t work as horizontal bars. Although, they could if wrapped into a visual similar to Demon Hunter’s from D3 – but it requires UI redesign.
I want to make it easier for ANet, mostly.

5. No. It means that different abilities require different amounts of the resource. Let’s say you have 20 points of it, weapon A requires only 9, when weapon B consumes 20. And you don’t lose the resource on weapon swap.

6. Technically, yes. My original though was that Symbiosis abilities require only resource to be activated and have no cooldown, besides GCD/cast time. They require different amounts though.

7. No, I think not.

8. My though with all this work was that Pet would be bound way more with player’s choices. Less autoattack damage, but more emphasis on using your F2 abilities for example, keeping the flow of Symbiosis generation, more clear counterplay.

Colors are always a good idea and make UI more clear. +1
As for evasion and swiftness – I believe that those would be just kind of bandaid. I went a little bit further, so I don’t consider half-measures in this thread, hope you understand. Good thoughts btw .

solrik.6028:

(PS.: Nice necro-posting!)

Thanks! My love and main is Necromancer.