Imp Suggestion

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Yoda
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Yoda »

who says I am taking it personal? I am discussing the mechanic, if you think I am taking it personally.. you are beyond incorrect..

When it comes to imps and their imbalances, its an opinion I have had for years... if you are assuming my resistance to deletion is me "taking it personally" then thats a result of you assigning meaning not present in my text. for future reference, assign a lighter voice to what you are reading when it comes from me. Its a videogame and likely I am chuckling along at the discourse.
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+Nyx
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by +Nyx »

Pets will get attention. We've made it known many times over. Most (if not all) of the staff agree that imps need some adjustments, but what those will be won't be determined for quite some time yet.

Everyone just hang in there. V and I want to finish our facets first, and then I know +C has some other projects in line, but the pets are definitely on the list and won't be forgotten.

GROUPHUG

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Agony
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Agony »

Yoda wrote:When it comes to imps and their imbalances, its an opinion I have had for years... if you are assuming my resistance to deletion is me "taking it personally" then thats a result of you assigning meaning not present in my text. for future reference, assign a lighter voice to what you are reading when it comes from me. Its a videogame and likely I am chuckling along at the discourse.
LOL Man, This is -not- about you... Let it go. Yeesh.
Back to the original topic.....................
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Agony
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Agony »

I resign my opinion to what +Nyx just said
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Agony »

I love ya Yoda.. You are always 100% logical about stuff.
This may have escalated more than I foresaw. The imp thing would be very complicated and difficult if addressed.
I am just hoping that one day the taming system will be worth more than what it is.
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Devlin
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Devlin »

*scrounges through his old posts*
AHAH!

Here's a couple posts from a dead thread. Has some stuff on imps, what we might be able to do them (Cap at 260 str, no insane damage, just no stat loss/pack instinct basically, or other things like throwing all the imps on the server into a giant fire... Kind of like a book burning, but really loud/annoying as hundreds of Homer's are aflame.) I know there's bigger fish to fry, but I also touched on some ideas on a new pet system that systematically improves various pets across the board in an attempt to balance new creations... But this is all speculation and just opinion from a dude who takes mules for a living and says.... NOW KISS.
Devlin wrote:As a pet breeder, I'm all for improving various pets, as well as the breeding system. Imps (the little green guys) would be AWESOME, if only they didn't take 2 slots. Five of those guys running around would be like feeding a bunch of gremlins after midnight. Breeding wouldn't be such a hassle if success rates weren't so abysmal, applying points wasn't a time consuming, even with Blaze's script, and if you didn't need to bounce across characters/borrow a friend to breed multiple pets. Being capped at 10 breeds per 12 hours is part of the reason i stopped doing a variety of pets and focused just on mules. Small changes such as tweaking breeds per day could lead to breeders focusing on more than mules/nobles, bringing back ozzies, hell hounds and maybe those ghastly swamp dragons. Breeding takes a bit of time/work to set up, yet for all of that, produces something incomparable to Imps, which are fairly easy to obtain.

Imprisoned Pets will have to be nerfed and people are going to have to deal with it. Theres no way of increasing pets to a level where they can be on par with Imps without creating a gap, as Nyx said. The purpose of an Imprisoned Pet should be changed. They are currently whirlwinds of destruction who can take some hits if they are ointed. Reduce their damage output significantly (by capping them at 260 str instead of 360) so that the squirrels exist mainly as tanks for such fights as the Ice Wyrm/Paroxy. This allows people to still get these fights done, just not as easily, as the imps aren't the main damage contributor.

The "imp goes to pack upon death" poses a problem for these kinds of fights (Paroxy, Wyrm, etc); pets are killed fairly quickly and too long of a wait may let the boss heal/regen and result in people getting nowhere (or using pets who can suffer stat loss.) Unless some mob mechanics were to be changed (serpent in Bedlam, Paroxy, Wyrm, etc.), the stat loss feature of the imp pets couldn't be removed.
Devlin wrote:It would definitely be nice to see more than mules, nobles and imps running around. Even the occasional swamp dragon, as ugly as they happen to be, is a welcome sight nowadays.

Toying with stat loss probably won't be enough to get people to shift away from mules/nobles/imps. There will most likely have to be some changes regarding both pet stats/slots taken. However, this opens up the possibility of a new, imbalanced pet emerging and replacing imps. To try and avoid unbalanced pets, I've grouped them into various categories. Each category could be improved uniformly, which may reduce the chance of OP pets (on paper, at least.) This is all theoretical!

The current groups are Tank/Caster/Packie/Other. Tank pets would receive a boost to HP and starter stats. Casters receive a boost to their ability damage, magery, or Intelligence (something to increase their damage.) Packies get a boost to Dex/Stam to increase attack speed, as well as a boost to movement speed, similar to Nobles. The Other Category is mainly custom tameables (mules, nobles, imps, wyrms, and steeds,) as well as cats, dogs, etc. Most of these will require individual tweaks, or nerfs in the case of Imps (but that's another post.)

Below are the groups. These may not be complete and some pets may belong in different categories. Examples: I put Unicorns in the Tank category because they are poison resistant. Also, its a mythical creature. That's gotta count for something in a fight. Scorpions are classified as Caster/Packie. They could be Tank because of their poison immune, but they also can poison, which is a damaging ability and could disqualify it, depending how its classified. Drakes could be a lesser dragon and receive a 50% bonus instead.

Tanks: Hiryu, Swamp Dragons, Unicorn, Gaman, WWs, and some beetles.
Increased HP to 2k. To fit as a tank, the pet must be large and not have a damaging ability.
Casters: Lava Lizards, Nightmares, Drakes, Ki-rin.
Increased damage. To fit as a caster, the pet must either actively use magery or possess an ability which can cause damage. This includes fire breath, poison, actual weapon abilities (some have CB/bleed attack,) or anything else.
Packie: Hellcats, Ozzies, Spiders, Wolves.
Increased Dex/Stam and movement speed. To fit as a Packie, the pet must have pack instinct.

Hybrids:
Tank/Caster: Dragons, Cu Sidhes, Rune Beetles, Ice Worms.
1.5K HP/small boost to damageTo fit, must be large and have a damaging ability.
Tank/Packie: Bulls, Frenzies, and Bears.
1250 HP and a small boost to dex/stam. Maybe a small movement speed increase. To fit, must be large and have pack instinct.
Caster/Packie: Hell hounds, Scorpion, Imps, Firesteeds.
Small boost to damage, dex/stam, movement speed. To fit, must have a damaging ability and pack instinct.
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Devlin
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Devlin »

TLDR: Imps are too good. Make them do less damage (cap str at 260, not 260-360.) Leave the stat loss alone.
Pets aren't good enough. 2 or 3 slot pets are the same as 1 slots. Boost caps (ie 2k Str, 2k Hp for dragons, et. al)
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Shindaril »

Now here's a new point of view for the imps. All thanks to Birko:
Birko: Time to take the real pet for a walk. I bet the wiki has nothing about poo bags :)
How about making the owner to actually need to tend their pets?

I mean, along with feeding them, collecting their waste, petting them, tending to their wounds in a progressive manner...

An imp could be having infections and maybe broken limbs and so on, which would develop over time into worse and more serious health issues, while also making the pet to suffer from stat loss and getting slower, taking more damage, you name it.

Naturally, this would also make a new revenue on the market as well via the need for specific items to tend each type of "wear" on the pet, so it must be thought carefully on where and how one can obtain those items to tend their pets.

I'm just giving this out here without any further mindstorming on the idea, so it's very vague as it is. If there is the need, I can go over this idea in depth to start shining it into a more working solution for the overpowered imps.

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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by denismcgagnon »

So remove imps, then nobles will be OP. Remove Nobles there's still Mules.

Why not remove the whole pet system I don't see the arguments of "that thing is OP we should remove it" as a good source there's always an item that's valued more than others : Imps, BC, SoT,Batwings. There need to be a workaround not a delete option just on grounds that "I've done and given away a bunch no biggy" that's not the same to the new players wich can hardly afford even the reg suits base arguments on facts not only personnal feelings like a lot of palyers have done lately. Have some faith in the +s they stated MANY times that they will be working on it. Less complains will give them more time elsewhere.
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by patrix »

There is a definite plus side to imps. At least with imps you can see the boss at champs! It is bad enough now with 10 or more nobles/mules attacking to target the champ. Imagine if it were dragons, ww or any large beastie that are space eaters.

Anyway I really don't get what the issue is here. I rarely see players with imps at Blood, maybe 2 players at champs with imps but more usually 1. I keep my imps bagged until the boss appears as I like to use my ww wep on the spawn. For a long time I didn't use them at champs at all. I only use them at Blood on para Balrons then bag them up.

I don't see that any player gets any advantage using imps at champs, the chances for a 120ps and the gold drop remain the same as for mules/nobles being used.

The same applies to Gauntlet. I use imps when soloing and occasionally when teamed with others who are using nobles/mules. In the 200+ times I have run the Gauntlet I have acquired 1 SoT. Admittedly if I stay there for a few hours I do make a good amount of gp when soloing.

I see far more players romping through spawn with mules and nobles so with apologies to Pink Ffloyd:

We don't need no indignation
We don't need no imp control
No dark sarcasm in the playfield
Players leave them imps alone
Hey player leave them imps alone
All in all it's just another brick in the wall
All in all you're just another brick in the wall

Imp owners unite! :twisted:

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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Ishamael »

Hazaahhh!! :dance
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Annachie »

Necro :)


I had a thought.

What if the stat caps on pets got a 50% boost for every slot they take up after the first slot?

So a 2 slot pet has a 1500hp cap, etc
a 3 slot pet a 2000 hp cap.

That leaves imps as pretty good, normal pets out in the cold a bit admitadly, bio's still top of the heap stat wise (I think) but it does kinda bring dragons and such back.

More importantly, it's a simple and predictable change. Allows the player to balance between 1 good pet or 3 average ones. Things like that.
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Devlin »

http://www.uoex.net/forum/viewtopic.php ... tem#p45716

dragged this out a while back. figured id put it in before the lock :P
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Maligant »

Here are my thoughts (I know some of this has been mentioned before, but please bear with me).

Right now, ointments and pet breeding can raise pets stats to the same maximum level, regardless of the number of control slots a pet takes - the only differentiation in stat caps is whether or not the pet has pack instinct. As a result, it's detrimental to use any pet that takes more than one slot to control, hence why everyone favours one-slot pets like mules and imps. This needs to change, at least for the sake of diversity - the caps for ointments/breeding should be determined by control slots as well as pack instinct. If a pet takes more slots to control, it should have more HP, higher STR/INT/DEX, and perhaps a higher cap on resists. Not necessarily to godly levels, but enough to make a 3-slot pet somewhat balanced vs. using 3x 1-slot pets.

Stat loss is too severe; the % chance of it happening is too high, and the losses are too extreme. On paid UO, I always enjoyed finding the perfect pet with the perfect stats, training it up, and then using it in combat indefinitely - but on Excelsior, pets feel disposable. It's not as much of a problem for bred pets, but for unbred pets that have natively high resists (e.g. an Energy Wyrm), stat loss will eventually lower those resists down below the ointment cap, making them less than useful. I think that stat loss should happen no more than 5% of the time (because face it, pets can die repeatedly in certain situations), the amount of stat loss should be reduced per death (perhaps the level of veterinary skill used for resurrection could reduce the loss further, if it doesn't already), and most importantly, all stats that any particular pet has should be recoverable. If a Rune Beetle has 94% poison resist, and stat loss causes it to go down, I should be able to ointment it back up to its native level of 94%.

Imps. I don't have a problem with Imps being immune to stat loss, but there probably needs to be a trade off, like a lower stat cap, or lower resists, or something. Honestly I'd be fine with Imps being left alone if other pets are balanced out.

Lastly, I wanted to suggest something with regard to breeding. Other than saving on ointments and making money from pet sales, I don't see a whole lot of benefit to breeding pets so far, especially since some of their stats (i.e. certain resists) are capped lower than freshly-tamed beasts. So how about adding a series of learned abilities that are available for bred pets only - perhaps you could specifically breed pets so they'll have bleed-attack, or fire breath, or be able to run faster (I'm looking at you, Mules), or even pack instinct. The process could be a completely random element of pet breeding, or it could be influenced by using a new set of ointments (growth hormones?) on pets during the breeding process. Naturally it would need to be balanced, so if a pet is bred to have pack instinct, its stats will be capped lower. It's just something to think about.
Last edited by Maligant on Fri Mar 13, 2015 10:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Dain Firehelm
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Re: Imp Suggestion

Post by Dain Firehelm »

Many long posts in this one, so i'll try to be brief :)

Please do not nerf imps. There are so many other things that can be done. I dont think that people that are advocating for that option fully realize how long or how much effort it took for us imp owners to find them,train them, get the thousands (around 8000) of oints and the millions of regs to max them out. It's not like the fall from trees already maxxed :D For me it's been literally years (2 to be exact). I surely tend to agree to other solutions like empowering other pets or creating questlines/mobs that other pets would do better against (i.e. mobs with high RPD) . Cause if they got weakened that would mean hundreds of hours of gameplay thrown to the trash. Thanks for reading :)

cheers!

p.s: and all in all, after a few relayers, i only use the imps to fight paroxysmus,ice wyrm,ruby dragon and sometimes slaarion... so like someone said above, not that imps are all over the place.
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