Miscellaneous: NPC / Pet Suicide message (32000 dmg)

[Rygar]

There was a Server Chat thread mentioning this a while back and I put it on my to-do list for looking into.

Basically in classic, if you invised / zoned / went LD / or did a /pet get lost, your pet would suicide. Not only suicide, but slash itself for 32000 points of damage.

This also happened to NPCs who got stuck or had de-pop mechanics, they would suicide for 32000. I'll list evidence for this too, but let's be real: my guess is this can be waaaaay too exploitable for griefers and cause too many CSR issues. Imagine triggering an epic mob fight but someone was standing on spawn point, which caused NPC to suicide and result in no loot or corpse. Or griefers parking FD monks or h/s rogues onto NPC spawn points for raid mobs, or even farmers standing on certain trash mob spawn points to make a camp easier to hold. Choice is yours obviously, but I don't see it being a wise choice to implement. I think the message should still be used when mobs despawn such as the raster cycle, pyzin ruins, etc.

Uncovered lots of evidence, I believe this is the proper format for the message:

[pet_name] slashes [pet_name] for 32000 points of damage.
[pet_name] has slain [pet_name]!

Yes the pet should always slash regardless of what it is wielding. When NPCs suicide they would maaaaaaybe 'hit' instead of 'slash', but not 100%.

How to implement?
I can see there being too many difficulties in making the mob/pet actually do 32000 damage. That would involve temporarily changing the max hit to 32000, well what if there is a glitch and it lives and you have a max hit pet of 32000? same with a velious NPC with +100k HP and now they have a max hit of 32000?

I propose it just be an emote, perhaps flagged to filter as combat damage so the proper text color shows and it goes to the proper chat window.

As far as I can tell this was in from Day 1 and lasted past Velious, not sure exactly when it was removed.

Here is the evidence for everything:
<8/18/2001
http://www.angelfire.com/games2/eqfo...s/magician.htm

Pet Management
When used correctly, elementals will save you countless times and allow you to solo and group effectively. When used incorrectly, pets will get you killed time and time again. You have to know how to control your pet. A few notes on pet survivability: If you cast invisibility on yourself, the pet will do 32,000 damage to itself. Yeah, ouch. Also, pets disappear whenever you zone. This is really no fun either, but apparently unavoidable.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=5597&p=4

May 23 2001
Ok, I know this would happen, and this is just to give out something fun to think about =) now, what IF someone happened to charm him one day, and since enchanters can do /pet get lost and the pet slashes itself for 32k... enchanter does /pet get lost over and over and over till it gets low on life then you kill it =P... but once again, i know it wont happen

May 29 2001
Charm has a level limit, the highest charmable pet is 59 and Yelinak is red to a 60...

Even so, /pet get lost does not make a charmed pet 32k itself, only a summoned one.

https://www.graffes.com/forums/showt...d-EQ-User-here)
Reference to 'The Karn Logs' which was apparently a classic post, can't find origin. Obviously a story, but speaks to the mechanic:

/pet get lost
Karn says, 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO'
Karn slashes himself for 32000 points of damage.

NOTE: I don't believe pets have a gender (correct me if I'm wrong), so thought that was just typed from memory, not some kind of paste from a log on the kill text.

7/10/2000

Not to mention the fact that if its master dies the poor pet, in its
grief, has no choice but to slash itself for 32000 points of damage and
end its own existence.

4/4/2000

He decided life was not worth living, he slashed himself for 32000 points of
damage. It is a pathing bug in that part of the sewers. When NPCs enter
water and get stuck agaist the wall, which your pet did, they kill
themselves. It happened to Cubert when I was chasing him :-(.

1/18/2000

<name> hits <name> for 32000 points of damage.
<name> has slain herself (or himself)
This is when a pet kills itself

Not always!!!!

Ive seen Dervish Cutthroats do that.

its not always when a pet kills itself..

its when merchants, guards, monsters, or any random NPC "32k's" themself...
its rare, but things do kill themselve randomly sometimes.

Generally a 32k happens when they can't spawn in their spawn point (do to it
being blocked or some such thing). Quite annoying when someone is standing in
the Supplier spot in lower guk and he 32k's. =)

I got something like that this week. My husband and I were in CB, in the
slaver area. All of a sudden I see "an orc centurian slashes himself for
32000 points" "an orc centurian has slain itself". I thought it was funny.
But that's the first time I've seen that. It was the same message you see
when someone's pet whacks itself when the owner zones.

yeah, check out Princess Lenya (or Lenia, whichever the necro is) in
the prison of highkeep.. She will make pet and it slashes itself..
over and all.. thats all she does all day until someone comes along to
kill her haha No wonder always out of mana haha

1/7/2000

>I could exploit that. Target a mage and start invis, mage pet dies.
No kidding. This is a big enough problem in groups.

"Thinxalittle begins to play a song.
Jabeker slashes Jabeker for 32000 points of damage.
Jabeker has slain Jabeker!

NOTE: I believe the above to be pasted from an actual log file, so believe that is the proper format to use on pets.

10/27/99

You can't zone with a pet, and they can't navigate Kelethin very well. You'll
probably want to park it next to the treetrunk of whatever lift you use, and
come back for it when your shopping is done. If you zone, your pet "slashes
itself for 32000 points of damage" and dies.

10/26/99

one quick button press and they explode in a 32000 dmg puff of smoke.

9/15/99

It would be nice to hide or use invis once in
a while without seeing the wonderful "Kobecor
slashes Kobecor for 32000 points of damage!"
messages

NOTE: triggered because user did not list a valid pet name in his description!

7/22/99

Apparently, when he issued that command I slashed myself (interesting,
since I'm a monk) for 32000 points of damage (beware my nails of
doom!). The duel was ended with my untimely death, and Raloon was
/highly/ apologetic. But I can't really blame him, who'd have
thought that would happen? It doesn't happen on NPCs after all.

NOTE: The above was originally a duel / PVP bug & exploit, where enchanter charms on PCs would register the /pet get lost command, and you would suicide and lose EXP from it. However the monk 'slashing' himself leads me to believe the suicide should always show 'slashes'.

5/12/99

Both of the piranha I was fighting
said Large Piranha over them and I didn't see anything else.
A few combat rounds later I see this:

Chomper hits Chomper for 32000 points of damage
Chomper has slain Chomper

Thanks for your consideration, keep it classic!