Game Mechanics: Should NOT be able to invis your pet.

[Baugi]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They were. "The owner could just invis it themselves", which was indeed the common thing to do as a pet class when you were moving through a dungeon or any area where you wanted to avoid extra aggro.

Seems beside the point, but this is the full post with context (in a thread about what the Air pet invis could possibly be useful for) -

>> casala wrote:
>> PvP? If you can't see invis, an invis air pet can be kind of sneaky.
>
>The owner could just invis it thsemselves.
>
>And really, see invis items are so incredibly easy to get. We can summon them at level 44, there are >a multitude of quests for said items too. Qeynos Badge of Nobility or just about any Ornate helm are easy to obtain.

They were clearly just refuting a suggestion that air pet invis might be useful for PVP, as evidenced by the followup comment about see invis being very common. Conversely, pets had been put on neutral faction way back in 2002 so invising your pet would not have been a common thing in 2004 (also because it was reportedly impossible) - https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game.../c/9gZLPZU1v_0

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's common business practice to incentivize an expansion, and there were tons of bugs happening. There easily could have been some kind of bug that sprang up after classic with players casting invis on their pet, and since there were other ways to achieve a similar effect at that point, they simply removed casting invis on pets.

No offense, but this is way too speculative.

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not that reasonable if none of us who played throughout the entirety of classic can remember such a change during that time.

Personally, I remember never ever trying to move in a dangerous area with a pet during classic. The pathing was way too bad. I wouldn't have registered a change like this.

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The patch note doesn't state that you can't invis your pet anymore. It says you can't invis *any* pet, very possibly meaning they removed casting invis on pets outside of your group (a change that could have been made because there were no pet windows at the time, and thus inexperienced players were getting confused by people randomly invising their pet and thinking their pet had died).

I agree both that the wording is ambiguous and that patch notes can be misleading. I started by trying to find contradictory evidence, but everything I found was consistent with Nilbog's interpretation if not conclusive.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Baugi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They were clearly just refuting a suggestion that air pet invis might be useful for PVP

They directly state that they think casters can invis their pet (and it does have a bit of usage for a PVP server; lots of characters don't have see invis after dying and being separated from their gear).

Originally Posted by Baugi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I agree both that the wording is ambiguous and that patch notes can be misleading. I started by trying to find contradictory evidence

Right now there's zero evidence of anyone in classic saying they couldn't invis their pet. That's a pretty big change and should have resulted in discussion somewhere.

The comment in 2004 shows that there may never have been widespread discussion on the topic, because the invis change happened when it no longer mattered and people weren't trying to invis their pets anymore.

[Zuranthium]

Found a dev post about this: https://web.archive.org/web/20000817...ive/arc5.shtml

the change was made due to the way spells interact on NPCs. Basically, by going through a series of steps, people were able to make their pets permanently invisible. On the PvP servers, this created a huge issue where people being attacked couldn't figure out what was going on. On the "normal" servers, people were charming creatures, making them permanently invisible, then releasing them into the zone. I'm sure you are aware of the problems that a few invisible sand giants can cause.

So the intention was never to take away the ability for pet classes to invis their pet, they were just trying to fix other bugs. Seeing as how there isn't any talk in the Velious era class threads of people being upset about not being able to invis their pet anymore, they perhaps figured out the bug by then and restored the functionality.

[Baugi]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So the intention was never to take away the ability for pet classes to invis their pet, they were just trying to fix other bugs. Seeing as how there isn't any talk in the Velious era class threads of people being upset about not being able to invis their pet anymore, they perhaps figured out the bug by then and restored the functionality.

Did you find any Kunark era discussion about it? Obviously the post mentions some but it seems lost to time. I think it was too niche a mechanic for people to care that much about, personally.

Intent argument aside, that post also seems to imply the patch did function as previously assumed? IE all pets were considered invalid targets for invis spells cast by PCs.

Arguing that the patch was reverted (and then implemented again at some later date to explain the 2004 description) is a really hard sell without any positive evidence.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Baugi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Did you find any Kunark era discussion about it? Obviously the post mentions some but it seems lost to time.

Can't find any archived forum posts, but that post indeed shows many people were upset when it happened and writing about it on the forums. But then in later available posts, it's no longer being brought up.

Given that it was only implemented to hotfix other bugs, that would be reason enough to not copy it. Those bugs don't exist anymore.