Iron defender, wolf pet overhaul if/when?

[apocaladle]

Can any dev comment on the plans of if or when there could be an overhaul to the iron defender and druid wolf pet system?

They have been broken for a long time and I can find any dev statement on what the plans are for them if any and why.

Underpowered, old enhancements, buggy ai, lag causing etc.

Any comment on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[devashta]

Sorry - I would rather have the hirelings upgraded to Legendary levels first and then work on your dogs.

[Mglaxix]

Best thing they could do is make the dog wolf and skelly like the falcon tree.

Best thing they could do with hires at this point is delete them.

[apocaladle]

Best thing they could do is make the dog wolf and skelly like the falcon tree.

Best thing they could do with hires at this point is delete them.

Why does everyone always jump to "Delete the thing thats not perfect"?

It's not helpful in the slightest and is comparable to scrapping a car for having a flat tire.

Maybe offer a constructive idea?

[Tist]

Maybe offer a constructive idea?

You think the Devs don't have constructive ideas about ways to fix the hires / summons / etc?
It's not hard to work out.

You can assume they just don't want to enough to actually do it, or else they would have.

Aside : I don't think the things should be deleted, I use hire healers all the time. They are ****, but they give me hps when I micromanage them.

[thunir]

Best thing they could do is make the dog wolf and skelly like the falcon tree.

Best thing they could do with hires at this point is delete them.

This would be awesome

[Xgya]

Best thing they could do is make the dog wolf and skelly like the falcon tree.

They need a lot of work in the survival department, but I do like having them as independent entities.
Making them immortal while near a (un)living owner would help.

You'd have the owners have a very short range aura (think warlock) granting a 2-second total invulnerability to the pet but making them lose all aggro, renewed every 2 seconds.
Once the owner dies, the pet can die too.

we lose out on one function that's redeemable at lower levels (low level pets can tank hits for you just fine), while allowing you to have your pet out to use their special skills and help in the damage department.
It keeps their other useful functions (lever puller, pressure plate paper weight, soulstone retriever) intact.

They need a lot more than that to be useful for sure, but that, at least, would solve the problem of them constantly dying in higher level content.

[gravisrs]

1. Hirelings need upgrade to Legendary levels (and coming 30+ cap). And this cannot be linear as it was for MotU expansion. eg Hirelings lvl 20 can survive pretty well on 20 EE quest, but hirelings 26 cannot stand a few mobs on 26 EE quest.

2. Iron defender and druid dog (and necro skelly) - can we have AP tree like for characters ? Also see below boosts.

3. Summons need some love as they are completely useless (don't scale well) at epic levels. How about adding caster's conjuration bonus to their all stats, MRR, PRR, Melee/Range/Spell powers, twice (or even three times) the bonus to their HP, half of the bonus to meele alacrity.

The only summons I use is Air ele from crystal cove in early harbor quests and it gets 2-3 kills then lol, even being CR10 summon (plus Druid past lives and other ship bonuses) in lvl 4 quests...

[SerPounce]

Sorry - I would rather have the hirelings upgraded to Legendary levels first and then work on your dogs.

Disagree. Pets are a class feature and therefore core functionality that should work in all content. Hirelings are an extra and there's nothing inherently wrong with them only being viable in non-legendary non-reaper content.

[SirShen]

All they need to do is get rid of the hit points from the dogs and wolfs just like the birds and now the new Familiars have no hit points. It not like they do that much damage anyway.

[apocaladle]

All they need to do is get rid of the hit points from the dogs and wolfs just like the birds and now the new Familiars have no hit points. It not like they do that much damage anyway.

But having the pet soak some hits and draw aggro for you is a core feature of the class in tabletop.

I loved playing 3.5 with animal companions and summons tanking encounters for the party while we cleaned up.

[Mglaxix]

Why does everyone always jump to "Delete the thing thats not perfect"?

It's not helpful in the slightest and is comparable to scrapping a car for having a flat tire.

Maybe offer a constructive idea?

I don't seem to see your constructive idea anywhere.

Best thing they could do is make the dog wolf and skelly like the falcon tree.

I guess you don't see this as constructive.

By deleting the hirelings which I think is the only way to fix them is constructive in my opinion.

Thus enabling the dev's to either remove them permanently or introduce an updated hireling system that works better of course I think the dev's have way better things to do than work on a new hireling system for an MMO.

[Gralhota]

devs don't care. NEVER answer about summons, Pet, Hire. I agree that the AI ??summons pass takes time to do but this is a lie when it comes to items. How difficult is it to launch an item targeted at minions by update? Remove the Minions from the game then.

[apocaladle]

I don't seem to see your constructive idea anywhere.



I guess you don't see this as constructive.

By deleting the hirelings which I think is the only way to fix them is constructive in my opinion.

Thus enabling the dev's to either remove them permanently or introduce an updated hireling system that works better of course I think the dev's have way better things to do than work on a new hireling system for an MMO.

Suggestions:

1. Summons get bonus prr/mrr/sp/mp/rp equal (highest int/wis/cha mod + conjuration bonuses)

2. Pets get their own enhancement tree.

3. Rebuild 1 hire of each class, and just have them at various levels rather than each hire at each level is a whole new build. Cleric/FvS/Rog/Wiz/Pal/Bard. That would cut the work down and just give them modern enhancements which when combined with summining bonuses should make them way more survivable and because cleric 1-30 is the same build and AI it is way easier to troubleshoot buggy behaivier.

Deleting hires outright I think is not a bad move if everyone was on 1 server but as is a lot of servers dont have the population to support most people being in a party. I run LFMs all the time but I am still soloing most quests as there are not enough players at all levels to easily fill groups. Hirelings are a band-aid to get around that somewhat.

The other thing to think about is SSG is a company first so if you make a suggestion that on the surface would hurt the bottom line no one is going to listen. Giving an explination makes it constructive just saying delete "X" is not helpful. For example if you were building a house and I said remove the basement and gave no reason why I thought that was a good idea you would ignore me too.