Jul 09, 2020 - New Pet A.I. (Update)

[Bran]

I found a few of the new pets but OMG the Seilemoi is a tough one to get. I got no idea how many times I died trying him. Finally blew through Deathmules refresh pots to get one and now need to hunt a ton of tradian blood to repay him. Hope I don't have to do that soon.

[Amairgen]

UPDATE #6

Okay folks . . Here now are all the new pets so far. I may add one or two more of the 'higher end' 5 Slot ones over the next couple of weeks (we will see).

Meanwhile the picture below shows them above and below one of our Pet Posts:
- The ones above are a bit 'lighter' and take 3 Slots
- The ones below are a bit 'heavier' and take 5 Slots
(Note: Colors may vary from spawn to respawn)

[Crossbreed]

Sept 7, 2020 10:54:25 GMT -8 Bran said:

I found a few of the new pets but OMG the Seilemoi is a tough one to get. I got no idea how many times I died trying him. Finally blew through Deathmules refresh pots to get one and now need to hunt a ton of tradian blood to repay him. Hope I don't have to do that soon.

I couldn't imagine taming one without parrying/wrestling. It wasn't that bad for me because my tamer has both, but no combat skills to deflect would indeed make that difficult!

[Bran]

Sept 7, 2020 11:50:30 GMT -8 Crossbreed said:

I couldn't imagine taming one without parrying/wrestling. It wasn't that bad for me because my tamer has both, but no combat skills to deflect would indeed make that difficult!

Hey I just got a second one after thinking about my strategy. The first time I tried it didn't sink in that Seilenoi start off as archers so they don't chase you. I died so many times on that first one because I ran around trying to avoid a melee attack while he fired poison arrows at me. On the one I just got I ignored Peacing him at all and just walked up and begin taming. Even at that I went through about 40 pots to stay alive but I didn't die and succeeded.

This may help.

Bran (TNW)

[Crossbreed]

Can help those without combat skills for sure. My tamer is built to be tanky and isn't hit as often, so it's relatively easy to stay alive when taming most creatures. I sacrifice not having bard skills, but I've never been much of a bard player anyways

Thank you for your insight, as it may help tamers with similar build setups!

[Calcifer]

Sept 8, 2020 15:34:51 GMT -8 Crossbreed said:

Can help those without combat skills for sure. My tamer is built to be tanky and isn't hit as often, so it's relatively easy to stay alive when taming most creatures. I sacrifice not having bard skills, but I've never been much of a bard player anyways

Thank you for your insight, as it may help tamers with similar build setups!

I should try this when I'm back cause i'm not much of a barding fan...

Let us know your expert opinion on the new pets when you've had a chance to play!

[Crossbreed]

Short answer is they're definitely worth taming, as they have extra bonuses attached to them besides the AI switching that makes them strong. I'll try and add them to my taming page soon, but I've been busy working on other things, so it may be a bit before I can update the page.

My template is essentially a Necro Mage with Wrestle/Parry and the taming skills. I've also given up vet (although you don't have to) and my gear focus is on my own personal damage and survivability. The biggest perk to this is I can be in vampire form for the increased regen and good poison immunity while also having high deflection so I don't get hit all that often and incidental damage if I'm not the primary center of attention is almost non-existent.

Anyways, to be more on topic, my current worry is that perhaps some of the new pets are much more worth using than the others, as the AI switching (to me) doesn't seem like it's enough to warrant the differences in power. For instance, so far it seems like the Worg and Impundulu are the two that are the most worth using in terms of general usage. Seilenoi will probably have some usage as it's ranged, and I could see some fun stuff for an Archer Tamer running Seilenoi with the harpy/roc from before for triple the bow action. It could be that the Skelter and Gigantopiths I've found so far are on the weaker end, but they haven't been as useful so far. Wendigo is the only one I haven't found so far, but when I find one I'll see what it's like.

I'm also a little concerned about how long they'll take to respawn between findings, as if their stat gaps are too large, it could take a long time to get a good pet for each type, since when you tame one you're also denying everyone else from taming it for a bit in that spot/zone. But we'll see how that is later on after some time has passed.

Either way, thank you to Amairgen for providing us with some new pets to experiment with! I'm a little surprised the revenant lion hasn't been used as a model for one of the pets actually, since it seems like a good fit for one.

If more are indeed coming, as you say, then I look forward to seeing what they also can do. I'm also glad there's some color variance for each of them, makes it even more exciting. 

[Amairgen]

UPDATE #7

I will be looking at the respawn times on the new pets (currently three days). I would appreciate input on this but bear in mind I prefer keeping these on the semi-rare side.

Also . . currently in the works is another of the higher end ones which I hope to introduce in a day or two. This one will be a version of a Sabre-toothed Tiger and belong to the 'Smilodon' group.

Cheers

[Crossbreed]

Sounds cool. Can't wait!


Also, I have roughly 5 days of waiting time until I'll be busy working on stuff again, so I may be able to use some of this time to update the compendium with the new AI pets. I'll leave their locations as a mystery to encourage exploring, but I can provide information on them (to the best of my knowledge thus far) as well as images. I may also make a possible pet combinations list and look to use the plot of land south of my normal home to look into creating an in-game compendium of sorts.

[Amairgen]

Sounds good. Do you have any thoughts on re-spawn timing?

[Crossbreed]

I don't want to undermine their rarity too much. I feel atm it's probably fine to leave it as is, but it's worth watching over time. If our playerbase became larger it could be an issue, but there's no immediate problems. It'll just take a little while to see the full range of stats if someone tries to farm for a good one, is all.



EDIT: I will say, after some talking and stat checking, the stat range on these pets may be too large. Some are spawning with only 800 health, while others around 1500. A 700 gap leaves a huge reason to farm them, which makes them spawning not as often more painful. If the stat range was tightened to around 300 it could make farming them less mandatory, while still leaving perfectionists room to farm out a better one. This would make the range 1200-1500 rather than as low as 800.

The other issue with them being rare is finding one with really bad health feels like you didn't really find something special. 800 Health is so much less usable than 1500 that they're honestly not even worth taming when they're that low.

If any of the pets don't go up to 1500, let me know. As of right now, it seems they all share the same hp range and potential pool. This could lead to why the skelter and gigantopith i found seem so underwhelming. They're only 800-900 health each, and I'm lead to believe they could be upwards of 1400-1500 instead. Makes it a bit harder to see if they all have use or not as well. 

Double EDIT: Found a skelter with only 700 hp. I'm starting to think their hp, along with the seil and giga, don't cap at 1500 but can't be sure yet. Also, finally found a Wendigo, health around 1343. Gonna update the compendium now that I have one of each, at least.

[Bran]

I found the ones I've used gain hit points when they travel to Tartarus then lose them when they travel back to a different facet. Not sure if that happens to them all but could be a reason some seem a wide range of health.

[Crossbreed]

I found a strange thing I'm seeing with the new pets. They can be trained up to 120 naturally, but taking them out of Tartarus de-levels them back down to 100 and they have to train back up again. I kind of like the fact that we can train them up, but it's sad their stats get set back down to 100.

And yea, they all gain health when they go to tartarus and it gets set back down in Trammel. I think that mechanic is fine, since the health is a non-moving stat. But I'm not sure if it affects the pets' base stats negatively or not. But I'm sad that the last 6 Worgs I've seen have all had only 800-900 health, hopefully better ones start poppin up.

Been testing the new basics of these new pets the best way I know how to make sure I see everything they've got: Having them beat me up so I can see their effects being used. Some interesting results I'll put on the tamer compendium, some unexpected, and maybe Amairgen could clear some things up as I'm also a little confused as to which pet is applying an aoe "You feel Weaker!" debuff.

[Amairgen]

I had not anticipated moving from facet to facet would remove training gains. I guess in my haste I did not stop to think they could be trained up to 120 *doh* I will look at putting in a mechanism to prevent loss of skill gains above 100.

Also . . the new Tiger I am working on has open some very interesting doors. What I am learning . . I hope to incorporate with some of the other new pets to make different ones special when facing certain hard monsters.

[Amairgen]

UPDATE #8

A fix has now gone live on the Server so the New pets should no longer lose trained up skill points when they move to and from Tartarus.

Side Notes:

1) The new Impundulu and the Wendigo may do something that would result in the message "You feel weaker"

2) Progress on the new Tiger continues and interesting things are being discovered that could result in some added abilities being added to our existing new pets over the next couple of months.