Pets. Issues and suggestions

cokkto

So since Morrowind came up to live servers, I've been struggling with fresh-nerfed pets. And this is what I came up with.

1. Pets do not regenerate health. They have well-hidden healthbar, that is not usually visible, and this health bar cheats the master. Pet might have 1 hp and appear as usually, and die right after an engage.
2. Pets do not respect collisions. I have submitted few bug reports about this misterious behaviour. In most delves pets got stuck inside walls and skip battle, whilst their master struggles lonely in a fight. They do not cross rivers and disappear for infinite time after short jump over water. They don't jump from heights, and disappear amazingly after any unusual falls. They barely can follow their master, matriarch freezes at the first spot it was entered a battle at, and stays there forever. Together with inability to heal through walls, the master and entire team are easily left unhealed by a dumb frozen pet. Finally, in some delves they just fall through walls and walk in Oblivion.
3. Pets do not respect commands. Heavyattack command should be prioritizable. Now it is impossible to send pet to a left flank whilst master is clearing a right one. Each heavy attack makes pet roaming among mobs uselessly.
4. Pets do accept aggro but cannot deal with that. Absolutely normal situation is when at the end of a battle there is one mob left very behind the group fighting solely with matriarch. There is no option to bring matriarch into fight, or point her a place to stay on.

From all aforementioned I dream about:
1. Show pets' healthbars and make them to regen health after fight fast.Healing pets is not a funniest thing in a game, but at least I need no bad surprises. Regaining max health after fight is a solution.
2. If you remove feature of healing through walls, then give a reliably controllable pet. Templar can reach teammate to heal, matriarch cannot. There are multiple options: allow to heal through walls back until you improve pathfinding, or give us a ground command to move pet to desirable spot, or let matriarchs move together with their masters..
Please, make pets to stay closer to a master and let them move during fights. Matriarch frozen at entrance should move with me on a safe distance.
Please, teach pets to jump and swim. Those dumb creatures disappears for life even in a plain sands of Alikr.
3. Give us a normal unsummoning technique during combat. I would rather wast time to resummon pet, than be forced to fight without them. For example, 3 seconds long pet cast should unsummon pet, and resummon instantly if casted again within a second. 4 seconds of cast should be enough to avoid recasting-for-heal misuse.
Make such priority, that: if heavyattack is made, then pet follows it. If commandpet+lmb command made, pet respects that until commandpet+rmb clicked, then again pet follows heavyattack. Those who don't use keycombos will not see a difference, those who do - will find use of it. Ingneral - commandpet key should override heavyataatck focus, recalling pet back shold reset state to initial one.
Commandpet+rmb must bring matriarch to master, otherwise a twilight is lost in a long battles.
Give us ground point ability. I want to command them separately if they are gone, stuck, or lost. I understand, that second command to move pet away may be is overkill, I would love if matriarch can just avoid ground aoes itself, not just die brainlessly in a red circle. However, if matriarch will follow me abit aside (not to cover my sight of view), it would be a huge step towards petosorcs.

At current stage you've just destroyed 2,5 spells from sorcerers line (2 pets and 1 morph of curse) without giving an alternative. Healing ability of sorcs is in danger. My nasty creatures need help, and so do I.

Merlin13KAGL

#3, the heavy attack aggro should only take place if the original mob the familiar was directed to has perished. Otherwise, it's poor design to have HA override Command Pet.

#4, Use Command Pet. Recall your familiar(s) (Right Click + CP) and the add will either reset or follow to your group.

Bryong9ub17_ESO

All this has already been discussed in great detail in other threads. But I have to agree. They really messed up pets with v.3.0.5.

I have dropped my pet builds until things improve with them.

They did however say they were going to take another look at the changes in the future. But how far in the future? And when/if they do will they even bother making changes or fixes.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Merlin13KAGL

Bryong9ub17_ESO wrote: »

They did however say they were going to take another look at the changes in the future. But how far in the future? And when/if they do will they even bother making changes or fixes.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Oh, I have faith they'll muck it more.

I doubt they'll revert/make optional the HA aggro thing. Command Pet was a good edition - allowed you to be in three places at once. Apparently that was two too many for some, and the HA breaks it.

I do anticipate they'll nerf a certain set whose name rhymes with "Deck row go tents."

Haenk

I'd like to add
5. Pets do jump around like mad. Or tend to just disappear after a fight, so I cannot even check their health.

Very annoying.

Merlin13KAGL

What else would be awesome would be some advanced settings, such as limiting the distance from the caster so they don't stray too far or aggro things by presence alone.

And the twilight (and netch, for that matter), shouldn't desummon when you're swimming. Last I checked, they could fly...