Pet Pulling

Don't call this server "The Al`kabor Project" please

Project 2002 is probably what you all want


i dont even wanna ask what the plan is for the sleeper

 

I haven't seen a single logical reason to keep what is an obvious exploit in the game.

Having pet pulling in the game does nothing but harm the game, trivializing and making things easier through an obviously unintended mechanic makes no sense.

The argument that on live it didn't get changed for X years makes no sense. You're admitting that it was changed, eventually, if it wasn't an exploit/bug then why change it ever.

In my experience in gaming any chance users can take advantage of poor code/exploits, they will. They will until they impact the server as a whole with inflated prices, locking down content, and we all know this will do nothing but fuel the RMT fire that is inevitable. If you want a server where things are easy and take no skill I think you have options.

Then again I could be wrong and I may have different ideas for what this server will be, but I think the devs owe it to the people who jumped ship from P99 to come over here expecting a similar(not identical) experience.

 

To me it seems there is really only once choice. I feel that people are presenting two options "fix the bugs" and "recreate AK as it was just before it was shut down." This is what I see being the heart of the pet pulling matter. I believe that both of these options are actually one and the same.

Lets look at AK. There were a small number of changes being made to the server over the course of it's life. Near the end Hobart was fixing some bugs. If the server were still up, would Hobart still be fixing bugs? I tend to think yes he would. Would he fix pet pulling? Possibly. If we truly want "the original AK" I think you have to look at the direction AK was heading. If Hobart was openly ignoring bugs/exploits then we should leave pet pulling in as it is (as well as other bugs). If Hobart was last seen fixing bugs, then I think we should go down that road and fix as many bugs as we can.

 

I think mobs pathing through walls (including pets) its more of an issue than just pet pulling

 

It got changed in X years later because it was trivializing content of the current era... if it was trivializing content of the PoP era it would have been removed in PoP. anything else you need help making sense on?

half these people putting in their 2 cents when they have never pet pulled, its not some magical technique that allows singles to pour into your camp.

the reason why I care about this isn't about pet pulling its about the general consensus of the recreation of AK, but I guess I got my answer. BTW if we are fixing bugs then sleeper should be wake-able (say bye to SoDs which was another awesome thing about AK)

btw i have up most respect for the devs / GMs it may be hard to tell because of my bad attitude on this topic

 

Interesting take on it.

The last patch did some random stuff.

Attempt to fix the pit insta-Respawning after RZtW death
Attempted to fix pit warring
Fixed DoT DMG Focii to work every tick
Killed PC Client
Added Beastlord AA Paragon
Tried to fix Cleric AAs (Celestial Regen to be a group buff with 15min recast instead of single target with 72min... A few others got reduced timers)

Previous patches

Removed instant-cast buffs with the PoInnovation hammer focus for enchanters.
Removed perma pacify
--these were both done not on purpose but instead because of a bug in how focus stacking worked I believe. The former being haste and the later being extension.
Attempted to implement 85/15 rule in ToSR... Sort of worked?
Updated from Alpha1.0 versions of PoFire and PoWater and PoEB

I tried to search for the posts about this stuff but I couldn't find it. There was more but the majority of them were just updates to late 2002 to early 2003 changes. Many which did remove certain bugs/exploits.

But I don't think his goal was to ever go far beyond and remove something like Pet pulling or stopping Shakerpaging, things which existed until 2007. His focus was generally to get things working like they did in 2002-2003. Maybe I am wrong though.

 

Yeah Id like to see ALL bugs fixed as well. I was just going with what Rob said earlier about purposely leaving in a bug because it was on AK. Either way, if the pet pulling is removed or not I will be playing because even with all these bugs and pet pulling, AK was amazing and many many people were happy with the way it was.

Cheers!

 

In the context of video games, an "exploit" is synonymous with a "strategy".

When framed this way, your post makes much less sense. What I think you are really trying to say is that you believe this strategy is too powerful. Which is fine; it's going to be hard to construct an objective argument to quantitatively determine whether pet pulling is "powerful" enough or not. (If this mindset doesn't seem intuitive to you, I suggest a exploratory look at the speedrunning community, in which doing things that the developer never intended are found ubiquitously across every game.)

In times past I would have a lot more to say on this subject. But ultimately, for me, it comes down to what is more fun. I think that pet pulling is a cool strategy, and it is quite fun for pet classes to have this technique as a part of their arsenal.

Of course, others will disagree with this and say that the game is not "fun" when it is too easy and that all of the powerful things should be removed. Well, as far as I am concerned, if you remove all of the powerful things you are going to be left with a server that is very dull. Even if you don't enjoy pet pulling, it should be plain to see how someone could find it to be fun.

 

You can call it whatever you want, but not all 'strategies' are good for the game. Way back in EQ classic beta, the first player to the level cap was a wizard who got mobs stuck and nuked them without the mob being able to hit back. This 'strategy' was removed for good reason.

It's not very fun for the monks and SKs to have their jobs taken away by the already-most-powerful classes in the game. Not only that, but the job is made much easier. You cannot look at pet pulling in a vacuum-- if you add this 'strategy' you will remove several other, much more intended strategies. THAT is what simplifies and dulls the game.

 

speedz you took me comments out of context, I wasnt demanding anything. I was torven mention pets going through walls, and I was saying ALL NPCs are going through walls.

 

while being aside from the point, this is true.

however, from what i understand, creating pathing is really time consuming. not difficult exactly other than being time consuming. perhaps the devs would be willing to take on volunteers to help fix the pathing? idk. i know a lot of it can be done on a test server with just a standard client.

this is true too. i two box a paladin and a necromancer. and despite the fact that my paladin has the Lull line of spells, if pet pulling stays in then my necromancer will be the one to do a lot of my pulling. especially since currently lulls almost always resist on yellows.

 

That is awesome

 

I am completely indifferent on this matter. Keep in mind that a number of things in common use and widely accepted by EQ players were never intended by the EQ developers. A great part of EQ is discovering and using interesting "accidents" of mechanics.

 

Lolz. Thanks for the laugh.

 

I think people overestimate pet pulling utility hugely.

If you're using any pet other than a mage fire pet, there is a solid chance it will die.

If you're using a mage fire pet, there is a solid chance it can get insta-gibbed with a direct damage spell.

If you ever screw up, it is almost a guaranteed death for the pet class, meaning delays Rezzing, medding and attempting again.

I just fail to understand how this removes a monk or bard's role pulling on raids or groups.

For any PoHate, Fear, Growth... You will be using monks. In Kael, ToV... You will be using monks. In Vex Thal... You will be using monks. Almost every planar raid it is quicker to use monks.

I just don't get the hate on this specific game mechanic in from 2002 when they made pets stop getting aggro themselves to 2007 when EQ was heading towards blandness.

FD pulling wasn't intended either. Nor were Complete Heal Chains. Or Weaponshield exchanges.

Players utilize game mechanics in their favor. This one certainly was not intended. But it also wasn't gamebreaking enough to be that pressing to be removed or cause every monk to quit in protest.

 

Saying that AK should be restored and then saying that its quirks should be fixed/removed is an untenable argument. Mages being able to single pull once in a while is not that big of a deal.

 

my comments in bold above

 

I think this is the main issue overall, pet pulling is just one of the many items we could come up with. Where is the line drawn? You could make an argument that for certain encounters pet pulling is far more destructive than pit war is, even though pit war overall has a greater effect. The server itself is never going to be AK 100%, so IMO fixing certain things that are deemed in need of fixing shouldn't be an issue just for the sake of keeping it "classic". It comes down to what is determined to be in need of fixing, and that is going to vary per person and even per dev/gm

 

Pet pulling in PoP, isn't always reliable. Add some a factor of target divine aura and you can pet pull anything. I can see how it's pretty over powered in classic, where mobs cannot 1-10 round pets.

With divine aura and pet pulling mechanics, you can single pull any raid encounter in the game.

If evasive turns out to be the same as it is on PEQ, monk / bard / sk / mage / necro pulling will all be irrelevant. Those who played on PEQ know what I am talking about.

 

This is my problem as well. I don't care about pet pulling. I do care about other things that removing pet pulling could remove...

Like item recharging for example. Really don't want to see that pulled because it added a lot of depth to the game and helped take platinum out of the hands of players into the vacuum that is NPCs.

To your comments on my previous post:

See above for #1.
#2 I am saying that if you have 2 FDers you can split most anything a pet pull could split in less time.
#3 Mage fire pet was best because it would cast from range. However if the mob had any casting ability at all, it was guaranteed to slay your pet.
#4 VZ - See #2, a rabbit and tagger combo with FDs split those easily. That room is huge. Had pet pulling not worked there, he would've died the exact same amount.
#5 - No problem with having monks/bards pull. In-fact in almost every situation, pet pulling is slower than a decent duo team of pullers. Pet pulling really was useful only when you lacked competent pullers (or FD classes in general) or mobs with really annoying effects like the Rathe Councilmen and their shadowstep spell.
#6 - See #1. Don't care about this. I care about the precedence it sets.

LoH raises a decent point. If anything nuke BDA'd pets.

 

I see this debate arising out of differences of what people want and expect this server to be. Everyone has a different view on what Al'kabor was. If we say the goal is to recreate Al'kabor with all bug fixes then we are saying one thing. If we leave some of the bugs in as Darchon listed it is another. Or we go in between and have this debate over every Al'kabor mechanic. With p99 the devs have been clear on their goals of the server, and regardless of player attitude, they move towards that. Their goal is maybe a little more clear cut then what is trying to be done on this server but their commitment to the most classic experience possible is admirable. Players don't like they have to hit sit before camp? "Shits classic" Don't like exp penalties? "Shits classic" Although even then, some things have been changed due to the knowledge and changing tactics of the playerbase. Stuff like nerfing Ivandyrs hoop. But that is a minor part of the server. The devs/admin team have the final say, they have an overview of the were the server is and were it is heading, but player input is always nice.

The question is, at the end of the day, 5 years from now, or whatever, when this server is "finished", what is it going to look like?

 

I dont see a problem with pet pulling, as long as they are limited the same way a player would be. That said, pets shouldn't be teleporting through walls, casting spells on monsters that aren't in LoS, etc... However sending a pet in from a fair distance to tag, then calling the pet back while you (player) cast a snare, or root, or whatever you need to get ready for the encounter seems fair.

Edit: After reading through the thread in it's entirety, I am more leaning towards just fixing the issue completely. I was kind of looking at the issue in a short sighted manner. "How does using a pet to pull a camp really hurt a server?" but looking at Monks getting their role kinda taken by an NPC companion, raid camps being split with a pet, and other potentially unsavory things seems like a terrible trade off.

I admit I never played AK, as I am a PC user. However that time frame was my favorite in all of EQ. That is the driving reason for being here. I liked nearly everything about it. However, that doesn't mean there weren't bugs that needed fixing (even if the staff had yet to identify them at the time). This can be a recreation of AK, but fixing bugs should continue imo. I the server were still up today I am sure the Dev(s?) would have continued fixing these problems.

TLR - Creating AK again doesn't mean bugs that were present shouldn't be fixed

 

Pet pulling wouldn't be the first thing removed anyway. Rest assured FD splitting and kiting mobs with SoW won't be removed.

If pet pulling were limited to VZ, I wouldn't care nearly as much. Although its use on VZ still had consequences-- his loot was quite good, so 6 boxers could kill him at 3:00am and prevent guilds from progressing. The forum had several begs from guilds to leave him up. Imagine how that would go on a more competitive server.

All these exploits being so widely known causes problems for emus. P99 had the problem of everybody getting easily obtainable instant-cast lifetap clickables and they spammed those on dragons, killing them in a few seconds. It's not classic to allow that, because these things just weren't known about or done 15 years ago. If they were, Sony would have CERTAINLY fixed them.

I realize removing some of these things takes away some of the 'flavor', but compromises have to be made to preserve the challenge of the game.

 

I was honestly divided on the issue until reading this. Well written.

 

I agree Ivdanyrs spam on P99 was dumb and they rightfully changed its recharge cost.

Here I wouldn't have a big issue with them changing it but reverting it back once we are beyond 32k Dragons being top end content. Because once it stops being able to insta-gib Dragons its way less relevant.

On the topic of "challenge of the game", again... There is none. The game has been solved, data mined, and described in every way you can imagine. We know max hits, special attacks, spell effects, frequency of all the above, etc.

There isn't much challenge left for those who have played through it before and paid attention to that stuff.

The biggest "challenge" on Al'Kabor honestly was having enough bodies to down the bigger events and continually back flagging since no 85/15 rule existed.

I use quotes because it was more time consuming and tedious to kill Grummus for the 20th time than it was a challenge. Especially once you get multiple EP geared warriors, etc.

The main challenge left in EQ (IMO) is doing things with low numbers. For example I probably killed Paffa in CoD 25+ times trying to get my Necro an earring and every time I did it with 2 people, each 3 boxing (and no, we never exploited the Pathing that most people did on that fight). Which is a fight generally designed for multiple groups. Same with Vhaskiz, 3 boxed many times when it was generally aimed at a full balanced group.

But with full groups or full raids, I don't see too much challenge. Maybe on the raids which are a nightmare to coordinate like Coirnav or Rathe, since there are so many cogs working but even then... Having 72 human players on those would've been a dream. I think the max Temerity ever got was 64... Most kills were under 40 mains.

As far as tedium/time consuming goes, I tend to think pet pulling takes longer than monk/SK pulling in most every case. And in the few cases where this is incorrect, the time saved in pet pulling is rarely warranted due to the time-delay in event of faliure.

If it is being used in ways that weren't used on Al'Kabor like pets casting through walls or running through walls, which allow you to do ridiculous things not possible on AK. Let's say pull Lord Inquisitor Seru to zone line for example. Or pull Aerin'Dar out of his lair. Things that remove mobs from their environment that could never be achieved by an FD or FM puller...

Go ahead and nuke it then.

 

If you vote yes to removing pet pulling you vote yes to a wakeable sleeper, which means having velious content that NEVER existed on AK

where do we draw the line on what is a *bug and what is a *unique feature of AK?

remove pet pulling until PoP is released Torven since you're adamant about DE's being easily pulled when you can tick pull them with a monk even easier... oh wait that was removed in the same patch as pet pulling I guess you should fix that here too