Controller Pets a new suggestion

[catsi563]

So we all love our controller pets our firey imps and sparkly gremlins, icy Jack, Tough Rocky, snappy the plant and of course the best pet of all Dark Fluffy in both slim shady form and wolf form. but theyre really all we get arent they and may not work in every situation

 

So this crazy cat has a  proposal

 

What if we could summon a different pet to do different jobs? This is based off of SWTORs companions which can do one of three roles tank DPS or heals

so what if a fire controller for example could summon Imps for dps but runs into a fight where more healing and some debuffs would be beneficial so they pull out smokey who has perma hot foot around him and casts char smoke and warmth heal, or they pull out Inferno a large fire elemental with an attitude who use burning aura giant firesword and taunt

 

Frost gets Icicle imps frosty little monkeys or wolves who use frost breath and freezing claws or good ole Jack as for control and support, or Glacier a giant polar bear made of ice that can smash your enemies

 

Stone gets pebbles little ones similar to the DE, Rocky as your support and Boulder a massive stone tank with a perma mudpots aura

 

Electric gets gremlins of course and Lighting a blasting pet with electric control powers for support, and lastly thunder a massive cloud that uses taunt and thunderclap to disorient enemies

 

And so on and so forth the possibilities abound and not much change to the power really either as it would be similar to change ammo for DP. just choose the flavor of pet you want and press button or toggle on, a lot of new buttons to press i grant you and cant control it like MMs do to keep that aspect balanced but a new and interesting change to the game 

 

have fun with your own ideas for fun pets =^_^=

 

 

[Luminara]

So... masterminds, but with only one hench at a time.  Mechanically possible, but very difficult to balance, and the implementation would probably require removing one or more controls to add the new pets, which would garner a hard no-vote from me.

[TheMoneyMaker]

So basically a dynamic duo instead of an MM.  Play as Batman but you have more than one sidekick to choose from as situational need dictates?

[CrusaderDroid]

Well, on the one hand, I think it's mechanically possible. Bio Armor's Adaptation grants three powers for the price of one, so we have coding precedent for powers that give you more powers.

 

On the other...why?

 

The limitations between powersets and the tools they're missing are part of what makes them unique and what gives City of Heroes its charm. If you give this kind of feature to all the control sets, they'll all be able to cover more ground with their kits that they couldn't before. That'll break down those differences between sets and make their individuality worse.

 

If this was a planned feature for a brand new control set, and the set was balanced around that, that would be pretty cool. As it stands, this is giving too much to too many, and I don't think it's a good idea.

[Uun]

19 hours ago, catsi563 said:

This is based off of SWTORs companions which can do one of three roles tank DPS or heals

You seem to be ignoring that companions in SWTOR are only active when you're solo or part of a duo (max team size is 4 and companions count toward the total). Controller pets can be active in all content.

[catsi563]

Nope Im aware much like MMs I was basing this more of the way SWTORs comapnions can do all roles as needed so it was an interesting idea to see if a comp for all seasons can do the same here 

[catsi563]

On 3/24/2024 at 2:21 PM, Luminara said:

So... masterminds, but with only one hench at a time.  Mechanically possible, but very difficult to balance, and the implementation would probably require removing one or more controls to add the new pets, which would garner a hard no-vote from me.

Nah I think it really at worst comes down to one button like DPs switch ammo power just pick your flavor of pet to"toggle on" for the situation

[catsi563]

On 3/25/2024 at 1:27 AM, TheMoneyMaker said:

So basically a dynamic duo instead of an MM.  Play as Batman but you have more than one sidekick to choose from as situational need dictates?

Yeah pretty much I like the visual imagery of imps but a neat add on a firey dark fluffy  or a giant lava or inferno pet  also same for the other pets

 

 

[catsi563]

On 3/25/2024 at 7:52 AM, CrusaderDroid said:

Well, on the one hand, I think it's mechanically possible. Bio Armor's Adaptation grants three powers for the price of one, so we have coding precedent for powers that give you more powers.

 

On the other...why?

 

The limitations between powersets and the tools they're missing are part of what makes them unique and what gives City of Heroes its charm. If you give this kind of feature to all the control sets, they'll all be able to cover more ground with their kits that they couldn't before. That'll break down those differences between sets and make their individuality worse.

 

If this was a planned feature for a brand new control set, and the set was balanced around that, that would be pretty cool. As it stands, this is giving too much to too many, and I don't think it's a good idea.

 

Not a hard yes we have to do this just more a fun thought exercise. as was said above i like the idea of the different pets

 

Though a new set flavored after that might be neat

[DrRocket]

Since I played controllers from live days, their pet, which was their main stay for dps, got mega nurfed.

 

Originally you could speed up the rate of recharge and be able to multi cast the imp and have them stack, also the cast was between 1 to 5 imps

 

So a proper outfitted fire controller and knew what they were doing, they could have as many as 15 imps!

 

Then they got mega nuked, to only 3 non staking imps, with  no balancing the other power sets to make up for the tremendous loss of DPS.

 

Which has been my peeve for years,  Where a group of players who plays another class gets jealous and soon the cries to nurf begins.

 

It would not be so bad, if then nurf of a particular power set was compensated by making other powers in the set a bit more competent, but that does not happen, the power in the set is nurfed and the total power set is now less.

 

Thinking that the average MM has 6 controllable pets, that it would only be equitable that the controller pets be raised from 3 to 6 uncontrollable pets.

 

Just a thought, on compensating for "sins" of the past

 

V/R

 

 

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, DrRocket said:

Thinking that the average MM has 6 controllable pets, that it would only be equitable that the controller pets be raised from 3 to 6 uncontrollable pets.

No. MMs get 6 total pets yes, but they devote 5 of their 9 powers to get them and fully utilize them. Whereas Controllers have 1 power and get their fully developed pets. So, again, no.

 

(Edit: And Controller pets use a higher scalar than MM pets do as well. So doubly no.)

 

Edit again: Besides, do you really want 6 pets at -5 levels to you?

Edited April 5 by Rudra

[Uun]

9 hours ago, DrRocket said:

Since I played controllers from live days, their pet, which was their main stay for dps, got mega nurfed.

 

Originally you could speed up the rate of recharge and be able to multi cast the imp and have them stack, also the cast was between 1 to 5 imps

 

So a proper outfitted fire controller and knew what they were doing, they could have as many as 15 imps!

 

Then they got mega nuked, to only 3 non staking imps

This change happened in Issue 5 (2005).

[DrRocket]

On 4/4/2024 at 9:13 PM, Rudra said:

No. MMs get 6 total pets yes, but they devote 5 of their 9 powers to get them and fully utilize them. Whereas Controllers have 1 power and get their fully developed pets. So, again, no.

 

(Edit: And Controller pets use a higher scalar than MM pets do as well. So doubly no.)

 

Edit again: Besides, do you really want 6 pets at -5 levels to you?

Please describe what fully developed means? and the controller has no control on the pets

 

To answer do you want 6 pets at -5, 5 would be better than 3 at -5, basic math, ha ha ha

[Rudra]

53 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

Please describe what fully developed means?

MM pets start with 1 or 2 attacks. Zombies for instance, have 1 attack only. The MM player has to use their two upgrade powers to grant their pets their full suite of attacks and defenses/resists. Controller pets on the other hand, are summoned by 1 power with all their attacks, defenses, and resists. Gremlins for instance have 3 different attacks when summoned without needing any upgrade powers to get all those attacks.

 

53 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

To answer do you want 6 pets at -5, 5 would be better than 3 at -5, basic math, ha ha ha

I don't see where you are coming from with this. The most pets a Controller summons from their primary is Fire Imps at 3 imps. Those imps are summoned at -1 level to you. (They should be summoned at -2 levels to you, but hey, Controller pet advantage. Controller pets get better scalars for everything and don't suffer the -2 level shift MM pets suffer for there being 3 of them.) So unless the devs decide to keep Controller pets capped at no more than 1 negative level shift for some odd reason, at 6 pets, just like if a MM were to be able to summon 6 pets with a single power, those 6 pets would be at -5 levels to you. That means those 6 pets for your level 50 Controller would have the amazingly good (note sarcasm) base hit chance of 30%. Even MM T1 pets at level 50 have a base hit chance of 56%. So fighting +0 enemies, your 6 pets would be doing almost nothing to your enemies. Go up against +4 foes? They run into the floor of 5% chance to hit.

 

53 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

and the controller has no control on the pets

Correct, MMs have the advantage of being able to command their pets. However, like I already said, Controllers have eight other powers in their primary to affect their enemies with. MMs? Have 3. There is the balance. MMs are the pet AT, so almost everything they have is tied up in their pets. So they need to be able to command and control their pets. Because they have a whopping 3 powers at their disposal from their primary set to do anything else with. Controllers get pets that start with more attacks, have better built in defenses/resists, and scale up better than MM pets, while also retaining eight other powers that they can personally use to control and win their fights just in their primary. So saying to give Controller 6 pets because it is fair to Controllers because they can't control them is not the least bit fair to MMs who devote almost their entire existence just to their pets and being able to support them with their secondary, which Controllers also get in their secondaries. And if the 6 pets you want Controllers to get don't level down like MM pets do but instead follow in the footsteps of Fire Imps, staying at -1 level to the Controller? Then there is absolutely no reason to play an MM any more. So what if the Controller can't control their pets. They will still now get the same number of pets as MMs do, those pets are going to be individually better than MM pets because of their better scalars, they won't suffer level loss the way MM pets do, and the Controller still gets 5 more powers that they don't have to invest in their pets to do whatever they want.

 

Edited April 8 by Rudra
Edited to correct "The" to "They". And a few more for grammer and clarity.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

personally I'm not a big fan of pets.

I can tolerate one but any more than that and I feel like I'm in a pokemon battle

I do like the spirit of OP's suggestion though

so how about for controllers that have more than 1 pet

if the controller attempts to summon another pet while all pets exist, they fuse into 1 stronger pet

for controllers that only have 1 pet

when the pet takes fatal damage they split into smaller pets (like DE granite's)

this give controllers some variety in the pets that they summon

 

[Doomguide2005]

 

15 hours ago, DrRocket said:

To answer do you want 6 pets at -5, 5 would be better than 3 at -5, basic math, ha ha ha

I wouldn't touch 5 pets at -5 in exchange for 1 pet like Rocky at -0.  Rocky hits and hits like a truck with Seismic Smash.  Rocky at -5 will miss more often than not and have about as much impact as a wet sponge.  And that is basic math.