Trained pets definitely are not needed. But different people have different playstyles. Some like to play with random trash throwaway pets and some like to spend 2 million on a top of the line dragon/mare and keep their stats at 100 across the board or not play. I personally train my dragons back to 100 before I play them. Call it a little OCD but I doubt most people run around with 91.7 magery. They macro it to GM before playing. We will see in a few weeks/months what happens but I predict a lot less farmers and more people playing it safe in amibs/treasuremaps/bod farming. Already so many people are just fishing the whole day and doing other things to make money instead of farming. I have a feeling this will just push more people to doing these things and we will have even LESS players in dungeons. But time will tell. I have been wrong before. Many times. : )
Sounds like I need I start my pirate scout bots again. People should not be feeling safe on oceans either.
I like the idea of big but non-permanent stat loss. That way you can avoid both fully trained pets being too powerful in PvP, while at the same time, when your pets get killed, you can just go do something else and the problem solves itself. After all, if it's so easy to macro pets up again, the timeout until the stat loss passes should be as good as the permanent one.
I like this idea as long as it means the tamer character has to be logged in and the pets can't be in the stable.
I am given slots for taming quests for free and I help a lot of people with quests. I'll glady go back to no bonds if removed. You dont know me that well, I was against bonding before it was introduced.
I started that last part but that's what it comes down to. If you're playing in Felucca, you ought to enjoy dishing shit out or taking it. You can't avoid both indefinitely. If you dont enjoy either, you're just in for a lot of heartache. Even if you could avoid it forever, you'd only be defeating the purpose of playing in Fel in the first place.
On a broader note, it is interesting that people not only enjoy being at risk, which is understandable, but also at risk from each other. Rather gloom and says a lot about human nature. And this at-risk-from-each-other is also worn around the neck as a big shiny proof of glory and manhood or feluca-ness. On a more specific note, why not link the ress to the skill loss? Insta-ress with deep loss, ress at 24h played with 0.1 loss or something similar. This way you have to be around to carry your pet's ghost, just long enough to ress it, but your hard work to raise the skills is not gone. Alternatively, i am trying to think of ways a PK can still get an excitement from depriving you from something you worked hard for cause this is a core element of UO. Maybe alternatively, making the loss greater/smaller when it was a player or a monster killing it?
If this thread isn't super indicative of the shard's direction I dunno what is... Sacrificing your server's tagline ("Without the influence of trammel") in the name of gaining new players (meanwhile, completely abandoning your vets) is barf-worthy. Sorry I don't know how to be nicer about it. 600+ accounts online at a time, hardly any PVP... speaks for itself.
For some, there is a sadistic side. But, there is not an AI yet that can replicate the experience of trying to outwit and outperform another human being. Ali vs Fazier? Fischer vs Kasparov? Patton vs Rommel? Michael Jordan vs Larry Bird? No? I guess not good examples. Those fights were staged. I guess some rather just stay on the factory line. If not for the villain, where would our heroes be born? Superman? Batman? Colombo? Kojak? Magnum PI? MacGyver? The Avatar? Solid Snake? Master Chief? Edward? No, let's not go there....
I have no reason to care one way or the other on the topic of pet statloss, as I use untrained pets on my tamer and gain nothing on my pvp character by killing pets. I believe the rationale behind the change was so that there would be some form of risk that tamers would have to bear. Everyone else risks their primary form of killing shit when they go out and die.
Ya... my bad I'm an idiot.. I can get behind that change. That way all bonding would provide is not having to go re-tame pets. But you'd still start from "scratch" (fresh pets). Best of luck convincing everyone else.
Being interested in fighting something that will potentially fight back = being sadistic? Based on your forum posts most of you would be happier playing farmville.... or troggle trouble math or some shit.
I got here late... While 90% of you wont agree the best system is a 24-48 hour window in which pets will take stat loss if rezed. This gives the player 2 options. Option 1: Rez pet early and take stat loss Option 2: Wait 24 hours and then rez the pet