Pets are OP… or are they? They definitely have changed the landscape of Realm’s balances. It’s a huge factor in balancing, and it’s often factored in designing enemies and character equipment/skill in terms of mana to skill effect and cooldown.
The view so far, pets need to be rebalanced.
Now, the reality:
- Players have spent good money on Divine pets, a chunk won’t be happy if they are nerfed
- Players have spent good time on at least Rare-Legendary, another chunk won’t be happy if they are nerfed
- Current content has been balanced around the existence of pets; Nerfing them would mean another rebalance of the current content
Now, what is the best way to change stuff in game without offending these points?
Proposal: Buff Pets
That's right, this is the going on the other extreme line of thought. The game's progression is quite tied to pets for a more persistent progression, so why not make it better? Let's see why and what it means.More robust pet system
The current pet system is: Feed if you have FP/Fame. Fuse if you can. No interaction if you don't have either. It's a very simple interaction, but little actual activity. The most I have done is hunt for the right race and ability, but once you got it, that interaction is gone as well. Being able to tinker around with what your pets can do and just general goofing around with... **pets** would be awesome.1. Growth System
This is the current "Feed"-ing system. This actually increases your pet's skills and level. Take it somewhat as a loyalty level or synchronize level.2. Food/Mood System
At 0 Mood, pets wouldn't receive any bonus, but it won't act worse either. You could groom your pet by clicking it in the pet yard. You can groom your pet daily, increasing their mood by 1 every time. Think the animal hearts in Harvest Moon. It decreases every 2-3 days of neglect(log in, but no interaction), so you have a good buffer time in case you can't enter realm. It caps out at 50.Spoiling your pet is bad though, you gotta balance it with actual work! Get it out and give it food… the souls of your enemies. Enemy in EXP/2000 are worth 1 Food. It caps out at 50, and decreases by 15 per day regardless of log in.
Both of these will act as bonus stats for your character; They will increase your max HP by (Food + Mood) and MP by (Food + Mood)/2 Points. A total whoopin of 150 stats, darn isn’t that good? A generous dollop of pure stats that everyone would enjoy. Do I believe that it would be game breaking? No, not really. 100 HP is a T3 HP ring and 50 MP is a little stronger than a T1 MP ring, but these stats would be much appreciated by late game players and early game players alike. Besides, the title of the idea is Buff Pets, not exactly rebalance them. I’ll take making them even stronger than as is than making them boring.
Skills Revamp
Here's an even bigger kicker!HP/MP Heal is FOR EVERY PET
No more slot 1 and slot 2 eaten by these pesky ability. It basically killed the variety in pets ability, and by making it available to ALL pets, it eases the hunt for the basically mandatory and turns it into the hunt for the preferred skills. So what does it mean for the current pets?Current pets will be treated as Legacy Pets. They can be traded in for new pets, choosing which abilities they want for skill 1 and skill 2.
This way, people may even hunt for multiple pets, ones with different combinations of skills for different classes. Decoy/Savage is definitely not your cup of tea for a rogue, but as a Necromancer that would be pretty sweet. Maybe Attack Close/Rising Fury/Savage for that low DPS priest to help with soloing dungeons.