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View Full Version : Mage pet chain summoning on Blue is broken


Vaarsuvius
06-19-2020, 09:10 AM
Hello all,

I know this subject has already been discussed, but it really needs adressing.

55 magician here, I was trying to get some Thurg faction in Kael a few of days ago, and I had to zone to WL after pulling a single Frost Giant Berzerker that conned GREEN to me.

I tested this with the same mob a couple times. I used max or next to max level Vocarate: Air, Vocarate: Earth or focused Greater Conjuration: Earth pets buffed with Burnout IV and Shield of Lava before the mob was pulled

The only spell I cast on that mob was a Wrath of the Elements DoT, so it's not like I'd tried to debuff it half a dozen times with Malosi. I cast no nuke, no pet heal, no DS, nothing else during the fight. Not only did that mob kill my pet with about 50% hp left but the 2nd pet I summoned would not get aggro and the mob kept chasing me and hitting me.

At the moment, the only way us mages have in theory to take on mobs that will require more than 1 pet to kill is broken. I'm not going to turn this into a class envy post & bitch about some other class being able to solo just about any mob in the game, I don't care, more power to them. I would just like to be able to play my mage the way I could on live: Chain summon and send pet after pet on a mob until it is down to 20ish% hp before I would start nuking it.

Any of the tougher mobs in the Hole are impossible to solo for a magician since chain summoning & pet aggro is broken:
golems, rats, ghosts or named elemental or any 2 dark blue cons at the same time are a big no no. This sucks when you're soloing while LFG there, like I often do.

This is just not right. I've had absolutely 0 problem with aggro pulling mobs with wrath of the Elements / Scars of Sigil, I know my pet will get aggro the second it lands a hit on a mob, but when chain summoning, unless I use an earth pet AND earth pet root lands and lasts long enough I know there is now way I can make it even if I cast next to nothing on a mob.

PL_Barton
09-01-2020, 11:11 AM
Wrath of Elements (DoT) is a higher aggro mechanism than pet melee. WoE is also not very mana efficient and isn't really worth your mana to cast, you'd be better off summoning a 3rd pet if it came to that.

Dolalin
09-01-2020, 11:25 AM
If I had to guess what's wrong, perhaps pet taunt isn't putting the pet ahead on the hate list above the mage for the second pet?

Vaarsuvius
09-02-2020, 02:31 AM
Wrath of Elements (DoT) is a higher aggro mechanism than pet melee. WoE is also not very mana efficient and isn't really worth your mana to cast, you'd be better off summoning a 3rd pet if it came to that.

WotR 800 dmg,/ 265 mana : 3.01DPM
Char: 702 dmg /260 mana : 2.7 DPM
Scars of Sigil: 450 dmg/ 175 mana: 2,57 DPM
Exile Summoned dmg 725/ mana 250: 2n9 DPM

Unless I suck at maths, it's better than all the nukes I could use at my level, plus it draws way less aggro

As to summoning another pet instead of casting WotE, depending on mobs, I'm not sure a pet will cause 800 dmg before it dies

Dolalin
09-02-2020, 04:07 AM
If you're using a DoT you're not helping yourself. Second pet has to succeed at taunt every 6 seconds in the case that its melee doesn't generate enough aggro to outdo the hate of 90dmg of your DoT.

Try chain-petting without nuking or DoTing. Can the second pet taunt it off you?

Izmael
09-02-2020, 06:34 AM
Roll a necro. A mage is like a gimped necro, really.

Zipity
09-02-2020, 08:07 AM
No your doing this all wrong, if you cast ANY debuff,dot,DD during the fight you get on the aggro table, then once your first pet dies you then get ALL the aggro the old pet had, to chain pets you can only chain pets. Only nuke once monster is going to be killed by your final pet.

Vaarsuvius
09-02-2020, 08:46 AM
No your doing this all wrong, if you cast ANY debuff,dot,DD during the fight you get on the aggro table, then once your first pet dies you then get ALL the aggro the old pet had, to chain pets you can only chain pets. Only nuke once monster is going to be killed by your final pet.

Agreed,

But if you read again my initial message, I think I wrote I also got the same aggro transfer issue and mob chasing me without my casting a single spell on it or casting any buff on my first pet

Will try again with a DDD and geonids or any mob in WL


Thanks guys

Videri
09-02-2020, 01:27 PM
OP is not doing anything wrong. Chain petting doesn't work the way some people think it should. I have also tried it in Kedge on a 50 mage, casting absolutely no spells, and the mob beelined for me until I gated or died. I didn't cast offensive spells on the target and I didn't buff or heal the pet before summoning a second one.

From http://wiki.project1999.com/Magician#Chain_Casting
Unfortunately, the way agro current works on P99, this strategy is not very effective. When a pet dies, all of the hate that it built up seems to be applied directly to the caster (instead of "lost"). This means that a newly summoned pet will have very little chance of peeling the mob off of the caster. This has been reported as a bug, but has yet to be acknowledged as one (as of 6/23/20).

I believe the mage is being kept at the same aggro level as the pet 100% of the time and the only reason the mob doesn't come for the mage is that the pet is already in melee range. People think the mage should have minimal aggro, but that's not happening. If this tactic is, in fact, classic, then the mechanics that enable it are not in effect on P99.

Lich
11-06-2020, 02:50 AM
Bump

derpcake2
11-06-2020, 10:49 AM
Chain petting seems to suffer from a similar issue bard charm kiting does.

Even with the most minimal amount of aggro possible, the pet is ignored by NPC's social with the one under attack.

Puluin
11-09-2020, 02:32 PM
Even when no nukes or spells of any kind are used and simply casting a new pet, it is currently taking MUCH LONGER for the pet to regain agro causing me to have to kite said mob.

I did NOT have to do this prior to a few months ago.

100% can confirm if the pet is killed by the monster ALL agro the pet had gained is dumped upon the mage making a new pet all that much harder to establish agro.

jbramlett
11-10-2020, 02:32 PM
This is the Velious Beta forum. I think this needs to be posted in regular server bugs page or no one will see it.

Vaarsuvius
11-11-2020, 11:42 AM
This is the Velious Beta forum. I think this needs to be posted in regular server bugs page or no one will see it.you're right, I will

derpcake2
08-06-2021, 03:39 AM
bump

long.liam
08-31-2021, 10:03 PM
bump

long.liam
09-01-2021, 10:05 PM
bump

loramin
09-02-2021, 11:22 AM
I want to see this change too, but it seems like this thread needs evidence, not bumps

If anyone can find an old forum post of a Mage talking about chain summoning, and how the second pet immediately took agro, I imagine Nilbog will fix things MUCH faster.

Dolalin
09-02-2021, 04:02 PM
Okay so I recently scraped and indexed the Magician's Tower boards. While this thread is from 2002, I think it's still pretty close to the classic pet aggro behaviour as I remember it.

First, it's implied that the second pet would grab aggro pretty fast after the first one was dismissed, if not immediately:

7. Depending on how fast the pet is losing hit points, you will want to recast roughly when the pet is between 20 and 40% of his hit points. When it's time to recast, hit your /Assist hotkey to target the mob, then start casting a new pet.

8. It takes 10 seconds to cast a new pet, so you have approximately 9 seconds to type this message: /pet get lost. Do not make this a hotkey, and when you type it do NOT hit <Enter> yet. Wait until you have half a bubble of casting time left, then hit <Enter> to kill the old pet. Your new pet will appear in about half a second or so. At that time, hit your /pet attack hotkey to continue the fight. Go back to step 6 and repeat until the mob is either low on hit points or dead.
Alternately, with the New UI, you can click the "Go Away" button in the pet window instead of typing /pet get lost.

9. When the mob is low on hit points you must decide whether you want full experience for the kill, or share it with your pet. If you pulled with a small nuke and did any damage, you will get full experience for the kill. If not you will need to nuke at least once before the mob dies to get full experience. If the pet does all the damage it will take 75% of the experience.

10. Dead mob, loot at will.



This bit is about taking on multiple mobs. It's fairly explicit that the mob would go straight for the pet and not beeline to the mage if he hadn't built up any spell aggro:


In answer to the multi-mob question. Yes, if your pet can handle the damage output from several mobs at once, you can chain pets. There are a couple tricks to this. First off, a damage shield is mandatory, your pet can only attack one mob at a time. So with a damage shield in place, all mobs are taking damage.

Second, you have to control your agro on the multi-mobs very carefully, do not nuke any of them unless you can finish one off completely before you need to chain another pet. If you haven't nuked any of the mobs, when you chain the next pet and send it in, it won't need to overcome any agro you have built on a mob and the mobs won't run past your pet to bum rush you. You can also train a mob that has rushed you back onto your fighting pet if you don't have major agro on that mob. DS-ing, burning out, and even healing your pet do not generate significant agro.


https://web.archive.org/web/20040830124356/http://forum.magecompendium.com/viewtopic.php?t=2238

Dolalin
09-02-2021, 04:33 PM
Here is a thread in era from the Casters Realm forums with mages talking about chain casting pet tactics:


The problem is once your first pet dies you are at the top of the aggro list because of the amount of damage you've done. Your new pet then has trouble getting the mob off you (It's really mad at you!) Try this:
-Cast a pet
-med up
-Burnout pet
-med full
-go pull a mob with Malise and get back to your pet.
-Flameshield your pet
-sit
-watch pet health
-When you know he's gonna die begin casting new pet (you know the drill... you've chaincasted already)
-Send new pet on mob
-wait till new pet has mob's attention and try nuking just once really hard near the end.
All you have to do is outdamage the SECOND pet and you get the exp. You make adjustments as needed depending on the mob so that you nuke as little as possible while outdamaging the LAST pet you need to summon to kill a mob.

If it takes 3 pets chaincasted to kill a mob you only have to outdamage the LAST one to get the exp. So sit and let the pets take a pounding. I usually only BO and shield the first one... the rest are 'disposeables'. Keep in mind if you have the mana to spare that the damage shield damage gets credited to nobody.

Perilbane Mooncaster
Mage of the 52nd Circle

https://web.archive.org/web/20010215004819/http://forums.castersrealm.com/eq/Forum6/HTML/003720.html


Another thread about chaining pets to kill Gornit:


After practicing more on the strat I talked about above, Ive found that on most cases a 44 MAge can easily solo any lvl Seafury with a min of 2 and a half bubs of mana, and 4 bubs (absolutely MAX amount if you get nuke happy) Im sure most people know how to do this, and just don't want to take the time, but it is pretty fun and really mana efficient against super tough mobs.
1.) Prior to fight. Cast BOII and Barrier of Combustion on Earth Pet <--Earth pet is definately the best for this
2.) Go find a Seafury to kill, and pull it with malisement..get close enough to the pull so you can tell if the malisement sticks or not.
3.) Bring back to pet. (here is when if the first malisement didn't stick, cast it again until it does..this way your final (and only) nuke won't be resisted at all)
4.) Sit and med while pet gets pounded, and does some pounding along with 20+dmg each time it gets hit oh yeah.
5.) when the pet is close to death, I start casting when the pet looks to have about an 8th to a 10th of its life left. blah blah chain casting you know how.
6.) You will go through this with your first pet and the second one you pull..the third one will live. after getting the third pet and DS'ing it and BOII'ing it, nuke the SF and it will either be dead or very close to dying...and guess what you did way more than half the remaining dmg as your current pet..so you get full exp. Works out very nice.
7.) The third pet from this battle becomes first pet of next battle and because of all the medding during the fight. You can usually walk away with half your mana left. And I only have 172 int..with 200int this would be much more im sure.
8.) rinse...repeat
It's funny, I was actually thinking last night that this might be a balance issue. A 44 character soloing something in 2 and a 1/2 bubs of man that a 52 druid in the zone said took three bubs for him to solo and really, it only costs us 5sp a battle..I think you can handle that. I'm almost positive that a 44 necro (The GODS of solo) would have a tougher time with these things than we do using this strat. It just makes me proud. And I actually lvld doing this. Its pretty good exp

------------------
Tomlyn Drayke
Lvl 45 Mage
Prexus

https://web.archive.org/web/20010306050127/http://forums.castersrealm.com/eq/Forum6/HTML/003485.html


They don't go into specific detail about aggro behaviour of the pets on the mobs but I thought I'd add them since they demonstrate this was a viable tactic in era.

Dolalin
09-02-2021, 04:45 PM
I think what would be helpful here is to try to quantify to what extent chaining pets is actually not working as it "should" be on P99.

* Is 100% of the aggro from the pet currently transferred to the mage when the pet is dismissed?
* How long does it take a second pet to taunt it off the mage, after dismissal of the first pet, if he has done no dmg to the mob?

This all feels a bit fuzzy right now and it's hard to know what to look for specifically if we don't have a firm grip on what's wrong (if anything).

I don't have a mage on p99 so I cannot test this myself.

Nycon43
09-02-2021, 06:22 PM
I mean it was working the way it was supposed to a couple years ago when I last played. Came back and it's been changed again.

Tann
09-02-2021, 10:05 PM
* Is 100% of the aggro from the pet currently transferred to the mage when the pet is dismissed?
* How long does it take a second pet to taunt it off the mage, after dismissal of the first pet, if he has done no dmg to the mob?

this is fairly anecdotal because my mage is only 29 but I tried several times on a few mobs outside (so i could run away like Sir Robin, bravely), the few attempts i made went like:

air pet
taunt off
no spells cast
casted 2nd pet BEFORE the first one died and used /pet getlost when the cast was about to complete. (mob was around 60-70%hp remaining at this point)
2nd pet immediately regains aggro.

Perhaps i'm doing it wrong?? Do I need to reclaim or let it die first for the threat transfer?

long.liam
09-02-2021, 11:37 PM
this is fairly anecdotal because my mage is only 29 but I tried several times on a few mobs outside (so i could run away like Sir Robin, bravely), the few attempts i made went like:

air pet
taunt off
no spells cast
casted 2nd pet BEFORE the first one died and used /pet getlost when the cast was about to complete. (mob was around 60-70%hp remaining at this point)
2nd pet immediately regains aggro.

Perhaps i'm doing it wrong?? Do I need to reclaim or let it die first for the threat transfer?

I will have to test it myself, but It might be that the Air Pet's Stun Proc produces enough Hate to pull it off of you. I do recall the water pet struggle to pull the mob off. Also each subsequent cast seemed to build more and more hate making increasingly more difficult for each new pet to pull aggro.

long.liam
09-03-2021, 12:36 AM
Yea I just tested it again on my 45 Mage in OOT. I tried to chain summon the Fire Pet on a Cyclops and each new pet took longer and longer to pull aggro from me. The 5th and final pet that killed the cyclops I was able to Aggro kite around the whole island before the pet finally got aggro. I can do it again and record Video if Necessary.

Tann
09-03-2021, 05:50 PM
Yea I just tested it again on my 45 Mage in OOT. I tried to chain summon the Fire Pet on a Cyclops and each new pet took longer and longer to pull aggro from me. The 5th and final pet that killed the cyclops I was able to Aggro kite around the whole island before the pet finally got aggro. I can do it again and record Video if Necessary.

did you let pet die or use reclaim? or did you /getlost before new one was cast? Not doubting at all just wasn't sure why my air pet was gaining aggro immediately, in theory if the first pet was using its stun DD then after it was gone all of that threat should go to me and the new pet shouldn't gain it so fast.

long.liam
09-05-2021, 05:01 AM
did you let pet die or use reclaim? or did you /getlost before new one was cast? Not doubting at all just wasn't sure why my air pet was gaining aggro immediately, in theory if the first pet was using its stun DD then after it was gone all of that threat should go to me and the new pet shouldn't gain it so fast.

I started summoning a new pet once the old pet was down to about 20% HP left. I used pet get lost right before the Summon pet spell finished casting. After each new pet summon it would take longer and longer for the pet to get the Seafury Cyclops off of me. I don't know the exact number of damage the pet did each time before it pulled aggro, but I plan on testing it myself again on a different mob to get the damage numbers. I don't think it matter whether the Mage cast Reclaim Energy, Pet Get lost or if the pet dies, but I will test that as well just to confirm. I will post a video on Youtube and a link to my Log files once I finished it.

long.liam
09-05-2021, 06:11 AM
I don't know. Maybe there's no hope of getting this fixed. According to this forum post: https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139036&highlight=mage+aggro, issues like this have been going on since P99 first released.

NPC
09-05-2021, 07:43 PM
So when your pet dies or dismiss it, any agro that pet generated transfers to the caster. That agro should go away the second the pet does. The agro was going away when the pet did for the 1st 3-4 months of Teal, just change it back. EASY to fix.

Vermineux
10-13-2021, 07:21 PM
Bump for attention. Really want to play a Mage, but this seems to be a nail in the coffin for the class.

PatChapp
10-18-2021, 06:31 AM
Bump

Bump for attention. Really want to play a Mage, but this seems to be a nail in the coffin for the class.

It really isn't, just use earth pets for chaining and they grab aggro with the first root. Cam level just fine never needing to chain multiple pets per mob as well.

Nycon43
07-11-2022, 04:47 PM
Pity bump, this deserves to get looked at.

Homesteaded
08-19-2022, 12:15 PM
Okay so I recently scraped and indexed the Magician's Tower boards. While this thread is from 2002, I think it's still pretty close to the classic pet aggro behaviour as I remember it.

First, it's implied that the second pet would grab aggro pretty fast after the first one was dismissed, if not immediately:



This bit is about taking on multiple mobs. It's fairly explicit that the mob would go straight for the pet and not beeline to the mage if he hadn't built up any spell aggro:



https://web.archive.org/web/20040830124356/http://forum.magecompendium.com/viewtopic.php?t=2238

Here is a thread in era from the Casters Realm forums with mages talking about chain casting pet tactics:



Another thread about chaining pets to kill Gornit:



They don't go into specific detail about aggro behavior of the pets on the mobs but I thought I'd add them since they demonstrate this was a viable tactic in era.

This seems like good evidence that the mage chain summoning we're seeing on green is not how it should be. Please address this as it really changes the fundamental gameplay of the Magician class.

loramin
08-19-2022, 02:11 PM
I'm convinced that they're doing reverse classic on Green. ;) Ok, not really, but the parallel amuses me.

In the real/classic/'99 game, who were the best soloing classes, the ones everyone else said were too powerful and needed to be nerfed? Mages and Druids.

Here on P99, who has a giant bug making them less effective, which has remained inexplicably unfixed for long periods of time? Mages and Druids (with Immolate).

It feels like (not saying that he's actually doing this) Nilbog is getting back at those classes here, to make up for how good they were back when he played.

Fammaden
08-19-2022, 09:54 PM
Immolate was never really part of what made druids strong, and necros were just as OP really. Snare, fear, kiting in general kinda "broke" the game back then.

Dolalin
08-20-2022, 12:43 AM
It feels like (not saying that he's actually doing this) Nilbog is getting back at those classes here, to make up for how good they were back when he played.

More easily explained by it being difficult to get all the pieces and people in place to do patches, imo.

Conspiracies take time that nobody has.

Homesteaded
09-23-2022, 03:39 PM
I'd like to add to this pile of evidence that the way exp sharing with your pet works now seems to contradict how it should work. If a mage pet without any dmg from the mage takes a mob to 1% but an outside source finishes it. That outside source gets the exp. So the mage gets all of that aggro but also is open to KSing in this situation.

So all of the aggro is being transferred to the mage while none of the damage is transferring. I suspect it should be the opposite, all of the damage should go to the mage while none, or essentially none goes to the mage.

eisley
09-24-2022, 12:00 PM
More easily explained by it being difficult to get all the pieces and people in place to do patches, imo.

Conspiracies take time that nobody has.

Depressingly true.

Tann
10-18-2022, 10:05 PM
I'd like to add to this pile of evidence that the way exp sharing with your pet works now seems to contradict how it should work. If a mage pet without any dmg from the mage takes a mob to 1% but an outside source finishes it. That outside source gets the exp. So the mage gets all of that aggro but also is open to KSing in this situation.

So all of the aggro is being transferred to the mage while none of the damage is transferring. I suspect it should be the opposite, all of the damage should go to the mage while none, or essentially none goes to the mage.

Sorry for the dumb question... Is this before or after reclaiming the pet?

branamil
10-19-2022, 02:02 AM
More easily explained by it being difficult to get all the pieces and people in place to do patches, imo.

Conspiracies take time that nobody has.

There's more important bugs in the queue. Nerissa_Clothspinner001 was selling berries instead of muffins.

Homesteaded
11-02-2022, 09:52 AM
Sorry for the dumb question... Is this before or after reclaiming the pet?

After.

Bump because this mechanic is really rough on an already somewhat limited class.

PabloEdvardo
11-20-2022, 02:27 AM
a side effect of fixing this would mean that beating Plane of Sky bosses during classic would become even more trivial (and possibly other bosses as well such as CT or Innoruuk)

it takes approx 24+ mages to trivialize most of the bosses in PoS. If the mages aren't getting summoned due to the broken aggro transfer mechanic, that number would likely be halved or more.

Sylex
11-20-2022, 05:51 AM
We tried doing the standard 3 pet class Phinny fight the other night and at some point during the fight our mage was getting summoned... never happened before.

Vaarsuvius
11-20-2022, 07:24 AM
There's more important bugs in the queue. Nerissa_Clothspinner001 was selling berries instead of muffins.

Exactly. Fortunately for us the missing orc centurion in Butcherblock is now spawning as intended

Vaarsuvius
11-20-2022, 07:30 AM
We tried doing the standard 3 pet class Phinny fight the other night and at some point during the fight our mage was getting summoned... never happened before.

Funny you should say that, it also happened to me last week. Air pet #1 died, I managed to get another one up but then I got summoned (there was another pet fighting Phini at that time) and pet #2 would not get aggro -> dead magician
I had cast nothing at Phini and only refreshed Burnout on pet #1 with a robe clicky

Ennewi
11-20-2022, 07:39 AM
There's more important bugs in the queue. Nerissa_Clothspinner001 was selling berries instead of muffins.

More important, yes, but also more difficult. One fix that takes much less time/effort to implement, by comparison, isn't going to detract from another that takes considerably more.

Homesteaded
11-25-2022, 11:48 AM
Devs, despites some of the salt in here we really do love you and appreciate you. Please help us mages. We will burn bread for you and provide endless water and arrows.

Love,

The Mages

Tann
11-30-2022, 07:53 PM
My mage is only 34 but I cant get the npcs to act as stated in this thread. Which makes me wonder if it's level related? Similar to how FD functions differently once the npcs are 35+

Once I can get online again I should find some red mobs to test that on, last I tried the level 35 citizen dwarves in BBM it would only take a hit or two for my pets to regain aggro

Homesteaded
12-09-2022, 10:48 AM
So a charmed pet breaks and the charm class gets nearly 0 aggro transferred to them. Seems pretty odd that when a mage pet dies it doesn't mimic this behavior.

Ruien
05-15-2023, 04:57 PM
While researching something else, I ran across hard evidence for mage pet chaining immediately pulling aggro.

https://i.imgur.com/BaqzCFs.png

The conclusion here is that pet aggro dies with the pet and isn't transferred to the mage (just like charm).

This is from page 233 of the Ruins of Kunark strategy guide- definitely in-era.

Rygar
05-15-2023, 07:01 PM
The printed guide was notorious for wrong information. I haven't researched this one way or another, but would never call the printed strategy guide as "definitive proof"

loramin
05-15-2023, 08:58 PM
The printed guide was notorious for wrong information. I haven't researched this one way or another, but would never call the printed strategy guide as "definitive proof"

True, but ... this isn't the guide saying "here's how the dex calculation works", or anything of that nature. We can both agree it was, infamously, very bad at that sort of thing. This is literally just describing gameplay.

It might be describing something from classic that got changed in Kunark (or maybe even something from beta?). But as far as I know, even the Prima guides never flat-out made up false descriptions of gameplay, so presumably this is how things worked ... at least at one point on live.

Surely if you (or another classic researcher; I would, but I'm terrible at it) did some digging, you could find some better evidence if that was the case.

Rygar
05-15-2023, 11:19 PM
Describing gameplay..? Saying "mob will run at you, pet will get it" is very loose.

Someone was saying hate shouldn't transfer, then why run towards the mage at all? Who is to say pet isn't doing a successful taunt?

There is bound to be better evidence than this from player testimonials. Again, I dont know one way or the other, but I have learned not to trust that guide as a resource. I understand the temptation, I've probably quoted it before myself. But it's just hot garbage.

Ruien
05-16-2023, 02:34 AM
Describing gameplay..? Saying "mob will run at you, pet will get it" is very loose.

Someone was saying hate shouldn't transfer, then why run towards the mage at all? Who is to say pet isn't doing a successful taunt?

There is bound to be better evidence than this from player testimonials. Again, I dont know one way or the other, but I have learned not to trust that guide as a resource. I understand the temptation, I've probably quoted it before myself. But it's just hot garbage.

For the purpose of demonstrating that pet chaining worked in-era on live, this guide is sufficient evidence.

Consider the opposite: If all of the hate transferred from pet to caster (as on p99 today), then the guide would have had to mention something like making sure you had a sow and running around in circles until the pet finally got it off you. Instead, the guide describes simply stepping away from the fight, casting a new pet, and engaging it on the oncoming mob. That's the strategy.

A good example of this logic is the "Root & Nuke" strategy. The guide would be remiss if it failed to mention that DD spells break root. So, how does it fare? It mentions exactly that: "Be ready to cast a root spell again, because assaulting a target with DD has been known to break the root spell".

Another example of this is fear kiting (called Reverse-Kiting in the guide). For this one, it suggests getting a sow as the first step of the strategy. Yes, it calls the strategy "advanced" while we would consider it basic. That is beside the point. The point is that the strategy as described generally works.

The comment about "why run towards the mage at all" seems out-of-place. A mob that was fighting a charmed pet when charm is broken will run at the the caster, too. This entire conversation is about the mage accumulating hate over successive pets to the point of making a well-known strategy like this one infeasible. If you try the strategy -- as described in the guide -- on p99, you will die. Therein lies the problem.

There's no reason to think a published guide less reliable than a random quote on a message board when it comes to which basic class strategies are being successfully employed.

Rygar
05-16-2023, 07:26 AM
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=361855

Some blurbs about how lame this strategy guide is. "Bards should not solo, but if you do, be sure to play a haste song".

Since this is a published guide after all we can take this as confirmation bard soloing on p99 should be limited to face tanking.

mcoy
05-16-2023, 09:47 AM
we can take this as confirmation bard soloing on p99 should be limited to face tanking.

Hey, if it stops the swarmers I'm all for it...

-Mcoy

pasi
05-16-2023, 01:10 PM
Posted on this a few times in the last 14 years.

I believe it is an intentionally unclassic mechanic that pet hate transfers to owners. Though any hate from successfully summoning/casting a conjuration spell is not well documented, the existence of bard swarm (swarm kiting; not AE kiting) demonstrates a lack of pet hate transfer to the owner.

So, whats the problem? Well, it's mostly a problem for vanilla. The two "broken" strategies in Vanilla are 1) Pet spells being extremely powerful and efficient and 2) Long Duration Stuns (i.e whirl). Both of which were well known from classic emulators prior to P1999. Both of which were abused and gutted shortly into P1999's existence.

The 49 Magician Pets can have 3k unbuffed HP which mages can summon for 200 mana prior to any specialization checks. Even if instant reclaim energy clicks did not exist, "tanking" 3000+ HP for 200 mana while doing damage is insane efficiency for Vanilla. Prior to NPCs rampaging, if there's no significant AE or if it's able to be blocked (walls indoors, water, etc.) - there's minimal risk. You just need enough to outdps the NPC's natural regen. So, something like Nagafen is do-able with 3 50 mages (add a cleric for some margin of error for heal/camping). Since there no rez-recovery with pets, the show just goes on. Hypothetically, ~20 level 50 mages could tank Kerafyrm for an eternity.

With that said, I don't think it is a problematic mechanic for Velious. Though, eliminating pet-hate transfer mechanic would be an indirect buff to Enchanters and Bards.

Dolalin
05-17-2023, 06:16 AM
Though any hate from successfully summoning/casting a conjuration spell is not well documented, the existence of bard swarm (swarm kiting; not AE kiting) demonstrates a lack of pet hate transfer to the owner.


Agreed. Pet hate transfer to owner was very low. I don't know how much exactly in number terms, but probably under 100 points or so, in line with what you'd get from body pulling.

Jimjam
05-17-2023, 07:04 AM
IMO all the pets did was add the owner's name to the aggro list, I find it doubtful it even added hate at all.

magnetaress
05-17-2023, 07:34 AM
IMO all the pets did was add the owner's name to the aggro list, I find it doubtful it even added hate at all.

and &&& ^^^^^

I'm going to risk a ban here

the devs like enchanters (and bards) (because probably autistic, which is what it takes to be a halfway decent dev anyway) and hate mages and dont give a *STUFF* about whether its accurate aka CLASSIC or not

try takp

lol

cuz raids and DKP and guilds named kittens and riot and *stuff*

everyone knew this and its why the default EMU code didnt do it and why it had to be added to p99 as a "bugfeature".

It's vengeance because a group of mages killed a PoSky mob or phinny or something (when there are way less toxic ways to make players share loot like simply making mobs open tag and random loot to everyone engaged)

hth

Rygar
05-17-2023, 08:51 AM
Plain disrespectful the dev hate and tinfoil hat conspiracies here. Take a step back folks

Tann
05-17-2023, 09:21 AM
the existence of bard swarm (swarm kiting; not AE kiting) demonstrates a lack of pet hate transfer to the owner.

I'd like to clarify, maybe I was misinterpreting the point here, that bard swarm kiting (charm) has never worked on p99 due to pet hate transferring to the bard once charm breaks. Hate can almost immediately be reacquired if its 1v1, but 1vswarm doesn't function correctly at all.

Though I suppose if it did work properly then it would demonstrate that the lack of pet hate transfer is a thing.

magnetaress
05-17-2023, 04:53 PM
Plain disrespectful the dev hate and tinfoil hat conspiracies here. Take a step back folks

An Honest: we know it's not classic butt my pally couldn't go up to PoSky in 2010 because a mage got his and or hers spot because people are toxic poopoopeelords so it's staying nerfed. Also someone probably soloed king Tranix or something with a mage which was probably doable in classic so we only want enchanters doing that. Hopefully this helps more.

Would go a long way to ending this thread and clearing the air. I am not upset. Just advocating for honor, integrity, and honesty and transparency. It's OK to literally be salty about mages and for the sake of the community and toxicity to nerf pet chains. It's even better to be forthright about it. Even tho tis'aint, classic.

Caveat: it's a nerf the original eq devs *would* have made if the server stayed in velious two decades.

Rygar
05-17-2023, 08:16 PM
People acting like they know true intentions around here. Dev a project for 15 years on a buggy emu to walk a mile in their shoes.

magnetaress
05-18-2023, 08:20 AM
People acting like they know true intentions around here. Dev a project for 15 years on a buggy emu to walk a mile in their shoes.

Dude your making a dumb assumption.

I'm not calling you dumb. Just your assumption.

G-d bless ! <3 :cool:

Croco
05-18-2023, 10:59 AM
People acting like they know true intentions around here. Dev a project for 15 years on a buggy emu to walk a mile in their shoes.

People assume because there's zero communication and zero transparency, so people will continue to do so until that changes.

loramin
05-18-2023, 12:33 PM
Rygar, you're all about evidence, right? Well, there's a wealth of evidence that Nilbog favors/disfavors certain classes with the classic fixes he does/doesn't make.

Now, does that prove that (say) Nilbog <3's Enchanters and hates Mages? No, it absolutely doesn't! The seeming disparity could absolutely be explained by something else reasonable, like that some bugs are harder to fix than others.

But (as Croco noted) in the absence of any communication whatsoever from the dev team, literally all we have to go by is evidence. If Nilbog gave a flying Dutchman what any of us thought, he could dispell any false impressions with a single post ...

... but he doesn't, and so I'm convinced he simply doesn't care what we think. So, again, that just leaves us with the evidence we can see.

branamil
05-18-2023, 01:03 PM
Can we give the p99 source code to TAKP? At least they deliver frequent updates and fixes and actually communicate.

pasi
05-18-2023, 02:45 PM
Rygar, you're all about evidence, right? Well, there's a wealth of evidence that Nilbog favors/disfavors certain classes with the classic fixes he does/doesn't make.

Now, does that prove that (say) Nilbog <3's Enchanters and hates Mages? No, it absolutely doesn't! The seeming disparity could absolutely be explained by something else reasonable, like that some bugs are harder to fix than others.


This seems like a lack of understanding of game mechanics? Pet's transferring hate generated to owners is a significant drawback for magicians and charming classes (i.e enchanters, bards, druids, and necros to a much lesser extent). Gutting this mechanic would remove the need (or drastically lower in the context of other hate generated) to successfully memory blur NPCs on re-charms for enchanters.

loramin
05-18-2023, 03:58 PM
I apologize! I came back into this from the "New Posts" link, not noticing that it was in the bugs forum :(

To clarify, my post (for what I thought was the general forum) was trying to say:


A) Nilbog doesn't seem to care what the peanut gallery thinks
B) Bug fix priority is determined without any communication (presumably because of A)
C) Bug fix priority can (and often does) suggest bias


When C happens, and there's no dev communication (B), it's normal/logical for people to discuss the possibility of bias ... (which Nilbog himself would presumably ignore, per A) ...

... but again, all of that was in the abstract! This discussion clearly doesn't belong in a bug thread, and again I apologize for not noticing the forum when I posted. :(

Jimjam
05-18-2023, 04:24 PM
I apologize! I came back into this from the "New Posts" link, not noticing that it was in the bugs forum :(

To clarify, my post (for what I thought was the general forum) was trying to say:


A) Nilbog doesn't seem to care what the peanut gallery thinks
B) Bug fix priority is determined without any communication (presumably because of A)
C) Bug fix priority can (and often does) suggest bias


When C happens, and there's no dev communication (B), it's normal/logical for people to discuss the possibility of bias ... (which Nilbog himself would presumably ignore, per A) ...

... but again, all of that was in the abstract! This discussion clearly doesn't belong in a bug thread, and again I apologize for not noticing the forum when I posted. :(

It would be great if bug fixes that don’t already have a forum thread get one for transparency describing the previous state, the evidence the staff found to support the change and what the change is.

It is very frustrating to try work on further investigating a fix when there isn’t any documentation of evidence.

Just imo,
I’m grateful for whatever work is done, tbh, even when it leaves me scratching my head.

SantagarBrax
05-18-2023, 07:18 PM
It would be great if bug fixes that don’t already have a forum thread get one for transparency describing the previous state, the evidence the staff found to support the change and what the change is.

It is very frustrating to try work on further investigating a fix when there isn’t any documentation of evidence.

Just imo,
I’m grateful for whatever work is done, tbh, even when it leaves me scratching my head.

^ 100%

Duik
05-19-2023, 02:37 AM
Maybe the fact the devs decided to not release any of their source could have facilitated the Daybreak agreement and if Daybreak did wish to redo old zones. If p99 source was in the wild there would be no need to negotiate with p99 devs at all.
RogBog may have been coveting their dev work (and rightly so!) and had no intention to share with anyone and the Daybreak agreement was a fluke. Or, they coulda been on the long game from the beginning.
All of that is pure speculation and could be completely wrong of course. Either way, the p99 project at least in whatever form it takes seems safe from imminent clusure. Yippie.

Infectious
05-19-2023, 08:40 AM
Rygar, you're all about evidence, right? Well, there's a wealth of evidence that Nilbog favors/disfavors certain classes with the classic fixes he does/doesn't make.

Now, does that prove that (say) Nilbog <3's Enchanters and hates Mages? No, it absolutely doesn't! The seeming disparity could absolutely be explained by something else reasonable, like that some bugs are harder to fix than others.

But (as Croco noted) in the absence of any communication whatsoever from the dev team, literally all we have to go by is evidence. If Nilbog gave a flying Dutchman what any of us thought, he could dispell any false impressions with a single post ...

... but he doesn't, and so I'm convinced he simply doesn't care what we think. So, again, that just leaves us with the evidence we can see.

Trolling bug reports? This post is about mages and pet summoning. Maybe keep the staff bashing and complaining to the wiki in your sig?

Ruien
05-19-2023, 10:27 AM
Trolling bug reports? This post is about mages and pet summoning. Maybe keep the staff bashing and complaining to the wiki in your sig?

This was already addressed and clarified by loramin three posts later.

Tann
05-19-2023, 10:27 AM
Trolling bug reports? This post is about mages and pet summoning. Maybe keep the staff bashing and complaining to the wiki in your sig?

This^

Keep the "enchanters here ain't classic" stuff to the 147 threads about the subject, none of which have any evidence mind you.

long.liam
05-20-2023, 11:12 PM
Yeah, It would nice to see one of the Devs say something in this thread. Even a, "No we're not going to fix this," would be better than nothing. However, I could understand why they haven't. It's kind of a major issue that require a lot of work to fix. There's something like 4000 threads to look through and only 2 dudes in their spare time to work on it. It's understandable that they haven't gotten around to this one yet.

Patrece
05-21-2023, 11:23 AM
While researching something else, I ran across hard evidence for mage pet chaining immediately pulling aggro.

https://i.imgur.com/BaqzCFs.png

The conclusion here is that pet aggro dies with the pet and isn't transferred to the mage (just like charm).

This is from page 233 of the Ruins of Kunark strategy guide- definitely in-era.

Look at the "reddit account" who denied this and started this discussion

For your own notes :)

Ruien
05-21-2023, 11:10 PM
Look at the "reddit account" who denied this and started this discussion
For your own notes :)

This is an odd reply to my post.
I'm not sure what reddit account I'm supposed to be looking for. Care to clarify?

Patrece
05-22-2023, 08:22 PM
ur not OP

Dolalin
07-07-2023, 08:40 AM
The Magician's Tower is back on the Wayback Machine, and here is a guide about chain casting pets:


CHAIN CASTING PETS -- A How-to guide

So you want to learn how to chain cast pets, and find out just what all the hoopla is all about? Here's a how-to.

1. For starters, pick a pet appropriate for chain casting. The overriding bias is to use an earth pet. The pet root will help keep the mob away from you between killing the old pet and siccing the new pet. You can theoretically use any pet, however. Don't be afraid to experiment.

2. Keep in mind that the biggest key to chain casting is mana recovery. Buffing the pet should be kept to a minimum to conserve mana. Fire shields are useful, but not in every circumstance.

3. Make sure you have these hotkeys set up: a. /pet attack b. /Assist , and optionally c. /pet report health

4. This part kind of goes without saying, but bring a lot of malachite with you to keep you hunting for a while between merchant trips. It's inexpensive, and a wise investment.

5. Find a safe spot to pull to, and park your pet there (/pet guard here). Now pull your mob. The preference is to use a low aggro spell like a small nuke, or cancel magic, or Malise-type spell.

6. Sic your pet now, and quickly start negotiating a safe sitting distance. *Sit down and meditate while the pet is fighting*, and hit f1 twice to target your pet and monitor pet hit points. Pet hit points are your major concern early in the fight, and monitoring them is critical.

7. Depending on how fast the pet is losing hit points, you will want to recast roughly when the pet is between 20 and 40% of his hit points. When it's time to recast, hit your /Assist hotkey to target the mob, then start casting a new pet.

8. It takes 10 seconds to cast a new pet, so you have approximately 9 seconds to type this message: /pet get lost. Do not make this a hotkey, and when you type it do NOT hit <Enter> yet. Wait until you have half a bubble of casting time left, then hit <Enter> to kill the old pet. Your new pet will appear in about half a second or so. At that time, hit your /pet attack hotkey to continue the fight. Go back to step 6 and repeat until the mob is either low on hit points or dead.

Alternately, with the New UI, you can click the "Go Away" button in the pet window instead of typing /pet get lost.

9. When the mob is low on hit points you must decide whether you want full experience for the kill, or share it with your pet. If you pulled with a small nuke and did any damage, you will get full experience for the kill. If not you will need to nuke at least once before the mob dies to get full experience. If the pet does all the damage it will take 75% of the experience.

10. Dead mob, loot at will. :)

Edited by: Jochan Galadar at: 2/26/03 12:23:03 am


and a reply:


Chaining

Couple additions, /pet report health is still very usefull to hotkey as it gives you instant and accurate health and buff information. The new ui pet health meter and percentages only seem to update on a tick boundary so can be up to 6 seconds old. They also don't update at all at extreme ranges.

In answer to the multi-mob question. Yes, if your pet can handle the damage output from several mobs at once, you can chain pets. There are a couple tricks to this. First off, a damage shield is mandatory, your pet can only attack one mob at a time. So with a damage shield in place, all mobs are taking damage.

Second, you have to control your agro on the multi-mobs very carefully, do not nuke any of them unless you can finish one off completely before you need to chain another pet. If you haven't nuked any of the mobs, when you chain the next pet and send it in, it won't need to overcome any agro you have built on a mob and the mobs won't run past your pet to bum rush you. You can also train a mob that has rushed you back onto your fighting pet if you don't have major agro on that mob. DS-ing, burning out, and even healing your pet do not generate significant agro.

Earth pets are prefered for this as the rooting of one of the mobs helps out. Other tricks you can do, are spread the pet agro around to both mobs. On chains, tell your pet to attack the opposite mob on each succesive chain, or tell it to first attack the mob that you think you have more agro on. If you have nuked one of the mobs, always tell the new chained pet to attack that mob first. You can also alternately target the multiple mobs and use /pet backoff, /pet attack commands to get the pet hitting a preffered target, either one with less health or more agro on you. I do this often in jaggedpines when I get a roaming add, with practice, taking down two gnoll warriors at once is easy, I have even done three once, but would truthfully have to say that you are better off gating with 3 gnoll warriors as your pet will be losing health very fast and there is little room for error.


Mandrayke
57th Mage Innoruuk


https://web.archive.org/web/20030419080707/http://pub102.ezboard.com/fthemagicianstowerlibrarysubmissions.showMessage?t opicID=94.topic

Nycon43
07-07-2023, 10:43 AM
It's funny how this used to work just fine but was changed for some reason? Not sure if intentional or not but never know.