Pets, faction, and AFK leveling with near impunity.

[Finawin]

Pets to my knowledge shouldn't have the same faction as the owner. They should be indifferent to everything and as such, not really able to be aggroed without action from said pet to deserve aggro.

I.E. a specific mage (everyone knows who if they've been to OOT in the past week) using this bug to AFK level for DAYS in Ocean of Tears with near impunity.

I think this needs to be addressed, personally.

[karsten]

yeah that guy tibador used to do it in solb and i say it must be STOPPED

[ammut]

It always worked that way during classic. Necros and mages could afk xp no problem...

To be honest they nerfed the afk necro pet strats with that faction sharing... I remember afk xping while feign death.. now pet is indifferent when fd....

[Finawin]

Pet is also supposed to poof after being AFK while FD for too long.

AFK leveling should definitely not be allowed in any form. Factions on pets need to be removed.

[Wenai]

Pet faction was classic and we implemented it as such. Whether or not it should be considered a legitimate way of leveling is a gray area. People on live did it all the time; members of the dev team did it on live.

During velious there was actually a single spawn in EW which spawned the same mob every time. If you parked your level 53 (?) Eart Pet on top of the spawn he would automatically engage and your pet could solo him and regen to full before the next fight. If you went AFK for almost a week you could hit level 60.

As far as should it be allowed on this server or not, I will leave that up to Nilbog as it is his call.

[Finawin]

That's ridiculous and it was changed on live to reflect that fact.

AFK leveling is fucking retarded. Not everything "classic" was good. Exploits are bad.

[ammut]

Pet is also supposed to poof after being AFK while FD for too long.

AFK leveling should definitely not be allowed in any form. Factions on pets need to be removed.


the pet poofing after 2 mn of fd was implemented during velious.

This is classic and it is not an exploit....

Exploit = you hit a mob that can't hit you back using a flaw in the game mecanism....

Stop trying to change the game guys.... I am sure that we will have the same discussion in a few months when u will ask for a nerf of chanters charm because it is overpowered....

[Finawin]

No, because I have a strong understanding of game mechanics and being able to plop a pet somewhere without repercussions and AFK level for days is retarded.

Enchanter charm isn't overpowered. The only time it became overpowered was with pre-nerf dire charm. THAT was overpowered.

I repeat what I said about everything "classic" isn't good. A lot of fixes were implemented for a reason.

[Finawin]

P.S. I am a mage. I am taking this pretty much as unbiased as it can get. I could afk level while I sleep but I am not a talentless hack exploiting something that shouldn't be possible.

Others aren't so honest.

[Allizia]

Removing faction from pets has it's own interesting side effects

[drplump]

Go ahead and make a mage or necro and afk level it. Everyone is welcome to there is more then enough spots in norrath. Just because you don't want to do it doesnt me every isnt allowed too. Its fair because everyone can make a 50 necro or mage if they want right now. This is like a warrior saying manastone should be removed because he doesn't have mana.

[Finawin]

That is a ridiculous faulty-logic analogy.

Manastone isn't a broken mechanic. It is an item that is only usable in certain zones.

...and like I said, I have a mage as my main. I refuse to exploit.

Planting a pet down across a zone from where you're sitting (literally across the entire zone) and having it kill mobs with absolutely no human interaction, ever, with no repercussions is an exploit. I don't know how anyone can see anything other than that. This is why it was fixed on live.

Hey, while we're at it I could use spots around the zones that allow me to kill mobs that won't fight back. Hell, by your "logic" this is okay since anyone can do it and it was doable on live as well.

[guineapig]

I have to agree here. Leveling to 50 while AFK is rediculous. By comparison the tumpy tonic quest at least involved some work...

By this logic, Whirl Till You Hurl should not have been nerfed yet either if we are going by live standards.

Basically I just want to know that if we all roll a necro or mage tomorrow and AFK lvl a character, will we be punished or banned? Or is it "all good". (Only GMs need answer this one.)

[ammut]

Removing faction from pets has it's own interesting side effects

could use it to split spawns i guess, anything else?

[dagarath]

I understand complaining about something that does NOT work the way it was supposed to in classic, but suck it up this is how it WAS in classic... if your still complaining go make a pet class already!

[Finawin]

Do I really have to list every exploit that WAS in classic to counter that retarded line of thinking?...just to prove a point?

We should implement fish rolls back to classic prices too! After all, that's how it WAS in classic. Learn to bake or gtfo? *rolls eyes*

[Killamancer]

I agree is finawin:( Just because something was from classic doesn't make it good.

[Cubehacker]

This is pretty ridiculous and should be fixed. Classes in EQ were never meant to be balanced, but being able to level your character up with zero interaction for hours on end is worse than dual boxing imo.

I honestly can't imagine too many people complaining about "I can't AFK level my character anymore, this isn't fair!"

[Allizia]

This is pretty ridiculous and should be fixed. Classes in EQ were never meant to be balanced, but being able to level your character up with zero interaction for hours on end is worse than dual boxing imo.

I honestly can't imagine too many people complaining about "I can't AFK level my character anymore, this isn't fair!"

I agree with this, /afk leveling was no different then using bugged pathing to hit a mob without them hitting you. I've never heard anyone refer to it as acceptable. However it was monitored by players/GM's the same way until it was eventually fixed. Leave pets classic, but start giving out warnings for afk leveling imo

^ It's Christmas and I'm only on a few mins, hopefully you get the point of this busted up sentence ^.^

[Goobles]

I agree with this, /afk leveling was no different then using bugged pathing to hit a mob without them hitting you. I've never heard anyone refer to it as acceptable. However it was monitored by players/GM's the same way until it was eventually fixed. Leave pets classic, but start giving out warnings for afk leveling imo

^ It's Christmas and I'm only on a few mins, hopefully you get the point of this busted up sentence ^.^


Vouch

[Finawin]

I would have suggested that if it wasn't just another thing the GMs had to do. I don't believe in adding daily responsibilities to GMs. I've been an admin for various MMOs, FPS servers, web sites, forums, etc.

It's not worth the hassle. Just put pets indifferent if you ask me.

[Cubehacker]

I would have suggested that if it wasn't just another thing the GMs had to do. I don't believe in adding daily responsibilities to GMs. I've been an admin for various MMOs, FPS servers, web sites, forums, etc.

It's not worth the hassle. Just put pets indifferent if you ask me.

Agreed. This isn't a project that being run by dozens of paid employees. The current GM's have enough on their plate as it is. Make pets indifferent and leave it at that.

[Finawin]

Bump, AFK leveling is bad mmkay?

[Danth]

On a related note, I've been told pets don't suck up a portion of experience when they kill things without the owner doing anything. I'm told they did on live. I never played a pet class, and don't on P99 either, but folks who did should know the ins and outs. Whether a pet eats some experience when function un-assisted definitely impacts this thread's primary subject. Yeah Yeah, thread's two weeks old and all. Oh well, still pertinent.

Danth

[guineapig]

if your pet kills something while you are AFK then you are doing zero damage to the mob.

On live
0 dmg = zero exp.

You need to do at least 1 point of damage... which keeps people from being able to level up while AFK.

[Wenai]

if your pet kills something while you are AFK then you are doing zero damage to the mob.

On live
0 dmg = zero exp.

You need to do at least 1 point of damage... which keeps people from being able to level up while AFK.
Definitely not originally. They tried different measures to deter people from AFK killing but originally there was no penalty I don't believe.

[guineapig]

I guess from a chanter point of view that makes sense since our nukes and dots aren't always the best way to kill a mob... Maybe that's why it took them so long to get to that point.

Truth be told, there are times when haste/berserker on pet combined with slow/stun on mob are much more mana efficient and generate less aggro than casting a nuke... but I digress. Chanters aren't the ones AFK killing.

[Finawin]

There originally was no dmg requirement, true.

I think that was to solve another exploit though, lazily. (Using high level DS that normally didn't land on people but landed on pets to kill mobs way out of your level range for example...but not sure if that was it)

You never had to worry about pets stealing experience in classic but, that's an unrelated topic.

[theRaion]

if your pet kills something while you are AFK then you are doing zero damage to the mob.

On live
0 dmg = zero exp.

You need to do at least 1 point of damage... which keeps people from being able to level up while AFK.

On live, If a pet kills something without the owner doing at least 1 point of damage, is a 90% reduction in exp. This was implemented around the time of Planes of Power iirc.

Pets were originally made factionless after problems which arose when owners were given the benefit of keeping their pets after going invis, but having their pets agro mobs just by running past. This was during Velious iirc.

Pet leveling is perhaps slightly more problematic here than it was on live originally, since you can get EXP from group-related sources (groups or your pets, for instance) zone-wide. In live there is a limited area you can receive EXP. This hasn't changed from classic.

Is there a limited agro range like the live servers maintain or is it zone-wide "if you agro it, it will eventually hunt you down until either you or it is dead?"
If the former, then pet leveling from across the zone is more exploit than functioning as intended. If the latter, then closer to normal function but still morally debatable.

I don't do it personally, but I can sympathize to a limited amount for either cause. Forgive me for being neutral.

[Jete]

You have no idea what would happen if you made pets indiff. Charm would become insanely OP- so im 100% for this. Fix Mages and Necros, make bards better! haha

[Kuldiin]

You have no idea what would happen if you made pets indiff. Charm would become insanely OP- so im 100% for this. Fix Mages and Necros, make bards better! haha

You do realise that any change automatically breaks Bards right?(even when unrelated).

[Jify]

Pet faction was classic and we implemented it as such. Whether or not it should be considered a legitimate way of leveling is a gray area. People on live did it all the time; members of the dev team did it on live.

During velious there was actually a single spawn in EW which spawned the same mob every time. If you parked your level 53 (?) Eart Pet on top of the spawn he would automatically engage and your pet could solo him and regen to full before the next fight. If you went AFK for almost a week you could hit level 60.

As far as should it be allowed on this server or not, I will leave that up to Nilbog as it is his call.

Not on this server! Our pets Regen the same lvl 4 through to 49! There will be none of this with that pet, unless regen is fixed. Consider it a afk-pet-killing-limiting-bug. 8(

[Jify]

You do realise that any change automatically breaks Bards right?(even when unrelated).

Oh, and bards are already broken! Can't swarm or AE dot kite (well, not to the same extent as live). Leave us be!

[Jete]

You do realise that any change automatically breaks Bards right?(even when unrelated).

Perhaps you haven't thought of it the way I have. Change my pet to my faction, I can now swarm kite with charm. Grats me taking down lvl 50 mobs in 4-10 seconds.

[Jify]

Perhaps you haven't thought of it the way I have. Change my pet to my faction, I can now swarm kite with charm. Grats me taking down lvl 50 mobs in 4-10 seconds.

Pet is your faction at the moment. Agro however, is bugged (or at least different from live). You "can't" pull agro with proximity after something already has agro. (which is why you can't train people with undead, or with SGs like Fansy did!)

I believe this is why swarm kiting does not work. (I fondly remember swarm kiting those spectres and just DESTROYING them in seconds.)

[Hasbinbad]

i thought fansy trained by dying on top of another group

[Finawin]

Nope, he trained by being lower than the allowed pvp limit (5 with selos) and 6 was when pvp was turned on.

So training SGs and not being able to be killed. FTW

[Jify]

i thought fansy trained by dying on top of another group

Nope, Fansy would pull giants with proxy agro. Then when he'd run over a group or person, the giants would switch targets because of that "proximity" agro. Same deal with undead, unless you had a fair bit of agro, you could train them over anyone in your path.

That's why as a bard, swarm kiting, you'd charm one, and make it attack. Any mob that you haven't casted on (which should be all of them except the charmed one) will turn around and pwn that single charmed mob because of proxy agro. Basically allowing bards to kill mobs like giants, specs, rockhoppers, etc,. extremely fast. :)

Back in the day, you'd take all 8 specs at one time so you could be the most efficient. It's better to take 2-3 now. I'm finding it even quicker to just avoid charm all together and dot kite. =/