Why did you reduce the functionality of Hires and Warforged pets

[westerndragon207]

for several days now i've noticed my hirelings are NOT following me through ALMOST ALL doorways. Even though my hires are on active they will NOT engage in combat.

My war-forged pet has incredible statistics but refuses to interact with many runes and doors as well as my hireling, they will speak as if they CAN manipulate the object but will not do so...no i will not report this on the bugs page because i believe you intentionally reduced the functionality.

I feel ripped off to know half my new artificer is broken....ive played up to level 10 and the loss of my hireling and pets functions is disparaging.

I have played this game for a few YEARS and I've never seen hirelings at such a useless state. and i mean even the lvl 3 maloren cleric hireling "which is still the least responsive hireling" was amazing in comparison to what they all behave like now!

I have discussed this openly in general chat with other players and they have noticed the "hang-ups" hirelings and pets seem to have cropped up with.

I also noticed hirelings to not seem to have ANY concentration in combat is this intentional or just an oversight?

I do not like to PUG ( pick up group) because I would rather run with my regular friends but when i cannot run with them i like to know that the AI sort of has my back not just sit down and do nothing while i die in a mission 3 levels below mine on normal difficulty.

There is a thriving "Perma-death" community that relies on hirelings to keep their characters healed and in fighting order and your destroying their ability to play in that fashion by DUMBING DOWN pets and hirelings.....if you don't want them to be able to interact with objects then REMOVE THE FEATURE do not give us half arsed features that only work when conditions are perfect.

and i must say in my years of playing ive never had my butt kicked so hard in "chamber of rayium" on normal and 99% of the issue was hireling related either not going through doors to follow me or just doing nothing in mass melee.

please fix the hirelings or just get rid of them.......

[CavernDragon]

Also we had defender bug on the air ship bed/bookcase.quest, (sorry forgot the name of the quset) and when we all jumped through to "back to the inn portal" the pet stayed on the ship and died, even when he tried to rebuild it or dismiss it it bugged the quest waiting for all members of the party. even after he rested he could not build another one told him he could only have one pet at a time.

after a wait he alt F4 and only after that could we complet.

to many time have the dogs become unresponsive, love the idea, but hate to ues it.

please fix the pets.

[somenewnoob]

snip (pun intended)

please fix the pets.

Absolutely. We don't want a bunch of stray defenders running around.

[TPICKRELL]

I've not noticed this issue with hirelings, and i've used them in a lot of challenge quests lately.

But definitely see the Artificer pet bug out and refuse to interact with everything including attacking baddies when on active mode. Seems to happen a lot when I go through portals or Zone in/out with it summoned.

Sometimes changing the pet to passive and back to active will shake it lose and sometimes I have to dismiss/resummon it before it will work properly.

It may be a misperception, but it seems like the pet bugs out more when I give it ship buffs. So, I've stopped doing that.

[westerndragon207]

I've noticed that when I use my artificer augments on my pet ( like i should be doing) it becomes less responsive.

guys don't take this the wrong way but I'm glad I'm not the only one with these issues.

Honestly artificers are VERY over powered when built correctly I have a level 9 artificer that can solo gwylan's stand on hard difficulty. I was soloing normal at level 4. I think the addition of the WF pet is overkill and its cramping up the summoned monster systems. I've also noticed the Chaos trait for WF pet (the box smashing one) is the worst glitched aspect of a pet ( i had to reset enhancements to get rid of it) he does not break boxes in anything that resembles a timely manner and if he can't angle the box exactly right he just stares at it until i call him to me. I believe the purpose of the box smashing was so that artificers didn't have to waste ammo from cbows to break crates. I believe the box smashing cross into other hirelings because i noticed that when my defender actually did smash crates my other summoned hireling began smashing things ( normally they ignore crates and barrels .)

I have dungeon mastered pen and paper since the beginning of 2nd edition and loved the artificer class in v3 its one of my players favorite characters ( i'm just glad it doesn't require xp to craft like in PnP)

Ive also noticed that other then the +1 or +2 to crafting levels artificers DO NOT have access to recipes in general crafting that other players do not. The whole reason you make a rogue is for traps the whole reason you make a cleric is for healing...it should be that one of the biggest reason to make an artificer is to be able to craft what others can't! i can make the same shards with my cleric that i can make with my artificer and with no difference in level and crafted quality.

ADD SPECIAL RECIPES TO GENERAL CRAFTING not just p2p challenges

[Jaid314]

Ive also noticed that other then the +1 or +2 to crafting levels artificers DO NOT have access to recipes in general crafting that other players do not. The whole reason you make a rogue is for traps the whole reason you make a cleric is for healing...it should be that one of the biggest reason to make an artificer is to be able to craft what others can't! i can make the same shards with my cleric that i can make with my artificer and with no difference in level and crafted quality.

ADD SPECIAL RECIPES TO GENERAL CRAFTING not just p2p challenges

no.

artificers in pen and paper craft the EXACT SAME STUFF as everyone else. there is precisely ZERO difference.

what they get is easier and cheaper crafting. and that's what they already get in DDO. the cost to get crafting to a good level on an artificer is drastically cheaper and easier than it is on any other character.

it is *literally* cheaper to start an artificer from scratch and go up to level 80 (if they're human and have dragonmarks) then jump up to 100 from bonuses than it is to take someone from level 74 to level 100. not sure what the ratio is for a non-dragonmark artificer, but it's probably if you've got less than level 80-85 or so it's cheaper and faster to just start from scratch with an artificer than it is to continue leveling up on that character if your goal is to hit 100 crafting.

(if your goal is 150, then it just gets even more exaggerated).

special crafting recipes available only to artificers is a bad idea on every level.

keep working on pets and hirelings, absolutely. but special crafting recipes are a terrible idea.

[In_Like_Flynn]

... There is a thriving "Perma-death" community ...I laughed and laughed, then went and had a nice nap.

[AZgreentea]

The hirelings have been weird ever since the U11 bug where they would aggro at super long ranges. That was on top of the existing hireling bugs and weirdness.

[BiliousBulette]

Was recently trying to introduce someone to DDO and one of the first things they commented on was the weird hireling/summon AI.

The most annoying hireling glitch I've noticed recently is healer-hirelings sometimes not healing themselves even when close to death, unless specifically targeted and ordered to do so (this is in active mode). This is intermittent: sometimes they do sometimes they don't - though it seems that once you've ordered them to heal themselves once they suddenly remember to do it thereafter.

Another bizarre situation is the healer hireling aggroing mobs, then shouting 'somebody heal me!' (someone forgot the 'j') with a full SP bar. Can't help wondering if this is somehow intended to teach melee players a lesson...

[westerndragon207]

I laughed and laughed, then went and had a nice nap.

don't be an arse im part of a perma-death guild on two servers and they have more then 30 members in each server and there are several other perma death guilds dont be a troll.

Also perma death makes you a much better player max lvl 0 deaths is 17 and its a great way to farm turbine points

[Oxlar7]

For a top shelf MMO, this is by far the worst pet AI I have ever seen. Its absolutely apalling. Its shameful. I've never seen pet AI this bad in any mainstream MMO.

[My2Cents]

I have noticed the healer hirelings sometimes not heal themselves even close to death. But they usually will when specifically instructed to do so.

I have noticed the healer hirelings sometimes stop following and you have to lean on the COME HERE button to get them to follow, even though they are not encountered, usually standing where we last were.

I cannot find any specific quest or hireling or situation that can explain this. Sometimes I can go on for awhile and everything is fine, other times I have problems.

And I really do think high level cleric hirelings need quicken and some form of buffing, hiring WYOH (sp) and having her die every time we move is no fun.

[CheeseMilk]

Absolutely. We don't want a bunch of stray defenders running around.

Have your pet spayed or welded.

I can't speak to pet AI, since I've never played an Artificer, but I prefer that my cleric hire stays back a bit, rather than running off ahead.

There is still a balance that needs to be reached, however, between mindless rushing ahead and mindlessly staying behind.

[herzkos]

don't be an arse im part of a perma-death guild on two servers and they have more then 30 members in each server and there are several other perma death guilds dont be a troll.

Also perma death makes you a much better player max lvl 0 deaths is 17 and its a great way to farm turbine points

I thought it was hilarious mate . . .
Thriving Perma-death community.
It may be thriving but somehow I doubt the individual characters are.

no doubt, PD play increases your player skills. Those skills may not be readily applicable to general game play
though. The whole caution thing seems to have gone by the wayside in DDO over the past several years.

Having said that though, If I have to explore new content (my favorite ) I'll go with PD players over zergers
every time.

[tinyelvis]

There is another explanation. Perhaps DDO has created sentient life. Maybe they choose not to act.

[EllisDee37]

it is *literally* cheaper to start an artificer from scratch and go up to level 80 (if they're human and have dragonmarks) then jump up to 100 from bonuses than it is to take someone from level 74 to level 100. not sure what the ratio is for a non-dragonmark artificer, but it's probably if you've got less than level 80-85 or so it's cheaper and faster to just start from scratch with an artificer than it is to continue leveling up on that character if your goal is to hit 100 crafting.Your examples are incorrect, though the basic idea is true.

It takes ~20k crafting xp to go from 130 to 150, so if you plan to go to 150, a human artificer with 20 bonus levels saves you ~20k. It takes ~20k to level from 0 to 80, meaning if your crafter isn't level 80 yet, it's more efficient to reroll as a human artie and start over from scratch if and only if you want to go to 150. Most people are perfectly content to level to 90 and stop, since that gives them access to all bound shards in the game. (U13 will bring flexible slotting, but no new shards.)

If the goal is 90, then a human artie only needs 70, which is ~16k xp. Actual 90 is ~28k, so 28k - 16k = 12k saved by bonus levels. This means if you have less than 12k it's more efficient to reroll. 12k is level 62, so if you're not in the low 60s and want to craft all the bound shards it's more efficient to reroll. But I think someone at level 60 would be foolish to reroll as an arite to take the slightly more efficient path to 90. If you want the full 150 or 200, then yeah, reroll as artie.

Basically, unbound crafting/flexible slotting is for human arties. Bound crafting without flex slots is for everyone else.

See the numbers here (http://ddowiki.com/page/Cannith_Crafting/Level_Progression).