Game Mechanics: Pet aggro too low

[BahamutDF]

I'm new here, but played a Mage on live in the classic era. How pet aggro is described here on P99, those mechanics are CERTAINLY not how it was on live.

Given I had intentions of main-alting a Mage here, I think it sounds like I need to rethink that plan.

A Mage without a pet capable of keeping aggro while its master nukes occasionally is a broken mage. Couple that with the need to outdamage your pet to get full experience = I don't understand how anyone could want to play a mage on this server. People didn't recycle pets CONSTANTLY to solo back on live. It was quite common to have pets alive for multiple levels. How is it considered acceptable that the only viable playstyle for a P99 mage is pet recycling? I'm not trying to be critical of the P99 server and possible mechanics that aren't 100% as they were as I know it would be impossible to expect perfection, but this sounds troubling.

Has any developer addressed this? I understand there are lingering issues based upon the need to basically recode the game for this server, but this totally sounds like the Mage class is broken here. I have vivid memories of how Mages worked back on live, and this ain't it. If it's an issue being looked at or worked on, I apologize. If it's an issue that devs haven't commented on, I find it perplexing.

[Asap]

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

I'm new here, but played a Mage on live in the classic era. How pet aggro is described here on P99, those mechanics are CERTAINLY not how it was on live.

Given I had intentions of main-alting a Mage here, I think it sounds like I need to rethink that plan.

A Mage without a pet capable of keeping aggro while its master nukes occasionally is a broken mage. Couple that with the need to outdamage your pet to get full experience = I don't understand how anyone could want to play a mage on this server. People didn't recycle pets CONSTANTLY to solo back on live. It was quite common to have pets alive for multiple levels. How is it considered acceptable that the only viable playstyle for a P99 mage is pet recycling? I'm not trying to be critical of the P99 server and possible mechanics that aren't 100% as they were as I know it would be impossible to expect perfection, but this sounds troubling.

Has any developer addressed this? I understand there are lingering issues based upon the need to basically recode the game for this server, but this totally sounds like the Mage class is broken here. I have vivid memories of how Mages worked back on live, and this ain't it. If it's an issue being looked at or worked on, I apologize. If it's an issue that devs haven't commented on, I find it perplexing.

We have accepted that in order to solo, we need a backpack full of malachite

[Asap]

We can't get a Dev to chime in on any of our magician pet threads.

[Potus]

For people demanding evidence:

http://web.archive.org/web/200304190...picID=12.topic

^^ A guide showing how pets work with other classes. Here's some great quotes:

WIZARDS
With the pet to taunt off, or better still Root, a wizzy can have fun nuking!

CLERICS
If the pet is acting as a main tank, treat it as a tpical tank, healing and buffing. Pets have enormous amounts of hit points at high level though (2000+ from the 51 level and higher spells). but they also regen fast.

ENCHANTER
Alternatively just let the pet deal with the mob ,you don't have to mez every mob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] The pet can tank quite well saving you mana and aggro.

BARDS
Bard songs dont' affect pets, major bummer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Also bards are HUGE taunts, so if partenring with a bard be very careful of taunting, only earth pets and probably air can stop mobs going after an incautious bard!

PET AGGRO & ATTACK DISTANCE this is little understood or utilized by most players. Elemental pets, as they get high level have a truly huge aggro and attack radius, meaning they can fight a mob from considerable distance, almost as if they had the reach of giants. In EQ distance = aggro, the closer a palyer or pet is to a mob the worse the mob will aggro on them. Since high lvl pets attack from a huge distance they rarely get aggroed on, wasting the pets ability to take damage for players and using its regeneration to heal quickly after the fight. This can be overcome using the "pull into pet method", basically the puller lures the mob then stands behind the pet so that when the mobs hits the puller and mage gives the pet the attack order, the enemy will be almost inside the pet, the pet will be so close the mob will go into a frenzy on the mob and almost totally ignore any one else! As long as no one over nukes or melees too close, the mob will stay on the pet, allowing the players free reign to reign havoc on the mob. As long as the pet is healed when necessary, this tactic can mean almost no down time, since no one is hurt bar the pet, which regenerates quickly. Casting a damage shield, or using a fire pet (which has a built in damage shield) makes this an awesome tactic!

Conclusion: Pets were fantastic at aggro. P99 pet aggro is broken.

Here's another describing pet aggro and tanking over other melees:

http://web.archive.org/web/200304190...opicID=6.topic

Note that in that thread people talk about pulling with DDs. If you pull with a DD on P99 you will have aggro for the rest of the battle. Also the mage talks about pulling to the pet and letting the mob run through the pet before hitting pet attack. That means pets had snap aggro.

Again these are all obvious things to anyone that played a Necro or Mage during Classic. Developers need to fix this shit bad.

[jadefoot]

After Velious was released I remember a patch that gave mage pets an extremely high amount of aggro. I was grouped in KC after that patch and nobody could pull the mobs off my pet no matter what they did. They quickly fixed that bug bringing them back to where they should have been as pets were hyper-aggro machines. Here are the notes, very first bug fix at the top:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/hist...es-2001-2.html

After the fix aggro went back to an acceptable level, what we have on p99 is nowhere near that. Devs throw us a bone here please, at least an acknowledgement.

[Asap]

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

For people demanding evidence:

http://web.archive.org/web/200304190...picID=12.topic

^^ A guide showing how pets work with other classes. Here's some great quotes:



Conclusion: Pets were fantastic at aggro. P99 pet aggro is broken.

Here's another describing pet aggro and tanking over other melees:

http://web.archive.org/web/200304190...opicID=6.topic

Note that in that thread people talk about pulling with DDs. If you pull with a DD on P99 you will have aggro for the rest of the battle. Also the mage talks about pulling to the pet and letting the mob run through the pet before hitting pet attack. That means pets had snap aggro.

Again these are all obvious things to anyone that played a Necro or Mage during Classic. Developers need to fix this shit bad.

Make a new thread with this info, or add it to the OP

[BahamutDF]

It just seems like something that probably should be, at the very least, addressed at one point or another. Even if just to say, "Everything is working as intended."

At least to get some finality. I am noticing the aggro mechanics, in general, are off from live. I am also aware that expecting everything to be 100% perfect is unrealistic and I'm just glad to be here amongst this community playing the game I cherish.

However, it would be nice to see Mages given their "freedom" so to speak from a singular playstyle that is antithetical to its own description.

[gortimer]

There are no mages on this server. They should probably fix the pets.

[Vyal]

Test it by pulling a mob with the clicky annul stick & if the pet doesn't take agro on the first hit then something is wrong however I pulled liked this before and it has never been a issue for me so at most it could be needing another split second to get agro that I never noticed.

[CodyF86]

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

Test it by pulling a mob with the clicky annul stick & if the pet doesn't take agro on the first hit then something is wrong however I pulled liked this before and it has never been a issue for me so at most it could be needing another split second to get agro that I never noticed.

Initial aggro is capped; That's why it's actually better to pull with a big nuke or malo
first. Send your pet in first, then nuke and you can see the difference.

Aaradin
Aaradone
The A-Team