| Subject: Tamers & Pets after AoS |
Author:
Darkstone News
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Date Posted: Mon, Feb 10 2003, 11:06am
In reply to:
Darkstone News
's message, "New weapons for AoS *pics*" on Thu, Feb 06 2003, 01:30pm
1) Several months ago the dev team stated that combat was being completely overhauled eg. weapon damage would be adjusted down across the board, new elemental resistances, monster hp tweaked down etc.
2) Someone on the boards repeated information from the AoS playguide listing new HP for some monsters and tameable pets. Cue much hysterical 'nerf' cries from some sections of the playerbase and claims of nightmares strugging to kill chickens etc. etc.
3) Vex explains the situation thus:
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Hit points on monsters used to be the equivalent of about 1/2 of a player's hit point, due to peculiarities of how UO's combat engine worked. In other words, if you hit a player with 0 AR and did 35 hit points of damage, the same exact attack on a monster with 0 AR would do 70 points of damage. Age of Shadows' combat engine does away with this dual method of handling damage, effectively doubling the worth of a hit point on a non-player.
Taking into consideration all of the combat changes including resistances, new damage values for spells and weapons, and additional factors, monsters' hit points were generally reduced by about 40% (with some specific tweaking to particular creatures). The end result is that creatures will still be able to absorb about the same amount of punishment after AoS as before.
Monster hit point numbers are now smaller, but the scale has changed. This is not a nerf -- it's just an adjustment to the numbers to keep monster power the same while the combat system itself changes
Vex
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The following question was asked on the tamers forum...
so does this mean all the time i spend getting that perfect 525/125/525 mare or that 760 ww or 825 dragon is now all for not?
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A player - Romney, gave this detailed reply...
No. Your pet will have the same strength, dexterity and intelligence as before. All their skills will remain the same. HOWEVER, your pets hit points will no longer equal its strength. With some exceptions, your pets hit points will be approximately 60% of it's strength.
This change will affect ALL pets, monsters and NPCs (but not players). At the same time, damage is being adjusted downwards as well (though spell damage has not been discussed at all.... we can only hope that it also will be adjusted downwards). What this means, in a basic sense, is that monster vs. pet combat should be roughly the same. Player vs. monster combat should be roughly the same. Player vs. Player combat should last a little longer.
Ok, thats the basics. Now the hard part. In addition to these changes, all monsters and NPCs and pets will get assigned static elemental resistances. Some monsters, pets and weapons will split their melee damage between physical and one or more elemental form.. instead of all physical as it is now. This means that certain monsters and pets will be more vulnerable to certain other monsters, pets, weapons or spells.
The present day Resistance will only affect certain spells, basically those that do no damage but have a different effect (debuffs, mana drains, paralyze). The new elemental resistances will not be able to be trained, so will remain static throughout your pets life. Players will be able to adjust their elemental resistances with the use of items. They will also be able to make use of a monsters, pets or players precieved elemental weaknesses.
You might want to use pets more strategically, having more varieties in your stables... allowing you to select a pet for a specific adventure with an eye towards its elemental abilities.
In PVP, pets will definitely be at a disadvantage to a well-informed opponent. They can use spells or items from an elemental weakness, and protect themselves against the worst elemental damage that a pet can put out.
The Magic Resistance skill becomes virtually worthless in PVM, as it protects only against a small range of spells.. many of which monsters do not employ... or employ effectively. At the same time, some of these spells are getting greatly enhanced.. meaning that debuffs can get pretty nasty (the example was a lich casting a 20 point curse against a 0 resist character). Trapped pouches will do 15 damage now too, so a player will have to determine if he wants to wait out the para affect (minimal at high resist and potentially a looooooong time at 0 resist) or take the damage and move on.
In PVP, however, where a player will use the full range of these spells AND can strategically use them... Magic Resistance becomes almost mandatory.. even though it is only defending against 9 out of 64 spells. The example given was the Mana Vampire to death effect. Couple with the fact that special weapon moves take mana.... a 0 resist character is at a severe disadvantage in PVP.
What does this mean for tamers? Well, a character designed for PVM is at an even greater disadvantage than before when faced with a PVP situation. That means that Champion spawns just became VERY deadly for tamers. Any player encounter can turn into death for the tamer and his pet (s) much easier than it can be done now... as long as the opposing player knows your pet's weaknesses. Since pets suffer statloss, this means that more than any other time, Tamers in Felucca are targets.
This represents some major changes for Tamers... and we will have to see the full range of implications over the next few weeks. Hopefully, if anything is too far out of whack.. something can be done. Some concentrated efforts on bug fixes will go along way towards helping out (flagging exploit for one).
Good luck to everyone!
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