Three simplifications for Animal Training

Mervyn

Animal Training is quite complicated.

I would like to suggest 3 minor simplifications that should be easy to impliment.

1. (This suggestion comes from @CovenantX )

All trainable creatures should spawn with a set number of control slots. (For example GDragons can currently spawn 4 or 5 slot, make all spawn as 4 slot) This way, you're simply looking to tame/buy a pet with the highest stats, (not a pet with primarily the lowest slot count, then secondarily highest stats). This should be fairly easy to impliment as many trainable creatures are already only available with a set number of control slots (example dread spider only spawns as 3 slot)

2. Only allow one magical ability to be placed on a pet, the same way you can only place one special ability or one area effect on a pet. Since placing a second magic ability deactivates the first. (There is a circumstance in which you may wish to place 2 magical abilities.. say you wanted vicious bite, you could train a pet in poisoning which opens up vicious bite, then select a different magical ability) In my opinion, the benefits of simplifying the menu and training process would outweigh the cons.

(see video i posted last year )

3. The animal lore & knowledge menu should display like the following (for all creatures, wild and tamed)

This makes things a lot more clear.

(3.5 :Please also give us a stable menu that shows a pet icon rather than a list so we don't have to give our pets such descriptive names to remember which is which in the stables. )

Pawain

So you want them to scrap Pet training after 3 years of working fine?

Tim

My opinion NO 

Marge

3.5 - Half the fun of taming is being able to name them! Long Live Mr. Wiggly Jiggly!

Mervyn

You can still call your najasaurus that  

Marge

As you can see - he is a Walrus! The most awesome walrus in UO!

Mene_Drachenfels

Hm... Advice No 3.5 is not so bad in eyes .

A small icon showing showing little dragons, nightmares and other ridables like hiryu, unicorn, fire steed and of course cu sidhe could be very nice to help pet searching when you have a long list of 42 pets max.

So why not if it makes my UO life as tamer a bit easier to live?

PlayerSkillFTW

Mervyn said:

(3.5 :Please also give us a stable menu that shows a pet icon rather than a list so we don't have to give our pets such descriptive names to remember which is which in the stables. )

Pinco's UI for EC allows you to select various icons for your pets in the stables.

Seth

We need an App to vote up suggestions. 

There are so many things for few Devs....

Mervyn

I am just trying to reduce the requirement to refer to a website. When you go to tame a pet, there is no way to know if the creature spawns with maybe fewer slots. I’m not even sure where to find it on the UO wiki about which pet spawns with how many slots. (I personally feel I must refer to a third party website)

Also, making the lore & knowledge menu display this way, will help you know & understand  what modifications you can make to a pet before training. The current tamers already know, and there are a lot of people who do not want to welcome new people to the game and like things to remain complex so they feel a sense of power over people. It is these kinds of people who drive away valuable customers, UO does not need to cater for the elite unsavoury few, whom these changes will not even impact at all. Please welcome new paying customers. 

JackFlashUk

Mervyn said:

I am just trying to reduce the requirement to refer to a website. When you go to tame a pet, there is no way to know if the creature spawns with maybe fewer slots. I’m not even sure where to find it on the UO wiki about which pet spawns with how many slots. (I personally feel I must refer to a third party website)

Also, making the lore & knowledge menu display this way, will help you know & understand  what modifications you can make to a pet before training. The current tamers already know, and there are a lot of people who do not want to welcome new people to the game and like things to remain complex so they feel a sense of power over people. It is these kinds of people who drive away valuable customers, UO does not need to cater for the elite unsavoury few, whom these changes will not even impact at all. Please welcome new paying customers. 

So what you are really saying is no one wants to talk to you, so you want to screw up the game for others

Pawain

  

Bilbo

^^^^^THIS^^^^^

jelinidas

Please do not mess with pets! If it ain't broke...

Mervyn

None of what is suggested would affect your pets.

keven2002

Technically it would if they made all GD 4 slots then the people that spent money or time on a good 5 slot would be kinda of SOL. Same with Dragon Wolf etc etc

Mervyn

so, how would that affect them? I said, the dragons that spawn, not people's current dragons

Tim

So you're saying once a player gets a couple of pets he/she never tames another?

Mervyn

I am lost sorry I don’t know what you’re talking about, you get 4 slot GDragons spawning now, so why would it matter to a tamer if all of them spawned at 4 slot instead of 1 in 20 or whatever it currently is? 

Currently, depending on the stats of the dragon I think determines whether it is a 4 slot or 5 slot spawn. I’m not necessarily saying that the GDrags should spawn with 5 slot stats but be 4 slot. They can all spawn with 4 slot stats. Or maybe not, maybe tamers would welcome the opportunity to tame a dragon with slightly higher stats. I personally don’t care. But I own a scrolled up 4>5 slot GDragon, I would certainly not be petty enough to begrudge anyone who tamed a GDragon with better stats that mine. But that is just me..

popps

What they should do, also, is doing something for all those LEGACY Dragons and CU-Sidhes which a lot of returning players may have in their stables....

Why should they have to release them because now they are pretty much useless as compared to the new ones which can be tamed ?

There should be something done to make them still viable and usable....

Seth

My understanding of the reason for 4 slots is to give flexibility when upgrading to 5. If given a 5, its already maxed and cannot be changed. 

Greater dragon is a 5 because half the wild specs its still powerful...

Maybe its time to have legendary level 6 pets. It will not be over powered because the event boss will still one hit kill any pet even if there is level 10 

Norry

Taming mastery 3 shoukd have been that. Allow control of lvl 6 pet(120 taming and lore real skill), and allow 3-5 slot naturally spawning pets to go to 6 slots.

Valis

Id just like to be able to Vendor Search pets. Its a minor thing, but it would be nice.

Mervyn

I am still confused one year later:

Theo

I would be happy if you got a chance at taming skill gain by commanding your pet or when you pet successfully kills something.  As it stands - the only way to gain taming is tame new pets. Thats not playing a tamer. Playing a tamer is hunting with said pets.  You can't hunt with a pet and gain taming skill.  Its one of the only skills where the gain process is not playing the skill.  Crafting? I craft to gain.  Fighting? I fight to gain.  Magery? I hunt and cast to gain.  Taming?  I tame and release and make no money for hours on end.  Its mind numbing and repetitive and no one likes it.  Command pet.  Skill gain chance. 

Marge

Actually, gaining by taming makes perfect sense for a skill called animal TAMING. To gain points for fighting with the pet, the skill would need to be called animal TRAINING.

Not that I don't think it would be nice to get gains that way but the manner of gain does suit the skill name.

Theo

Marge said:

Actually, gaining by taming makes perfect sense for a skill called animal TAMING. To gain points for fighting with the pet, the skill would need to be called animal TRAINING.

Not that I don't think it would be nice to get gains that way but the manner of gain does suit the skill name.

Symantics of what the name of the skill is called is irrelevant.  The point is that you cannot adventure and PLAY the game in a meaningful way (adventure, kill, loot) by using animal taming. You stand around doing non-sense taming and releasing until you have sufficient skill. You tame and train your pets. You never actively gain or even use taming again for the most part. 

If I"m gaing cartography i can do Tmaps and get loot while I gain.  

Lockpicking I can pick chests and get loot and gain.

Crafting - do bods for rewards and gain skill.

Mace fighting - kill things and loot and gain skill.

Poisoning - Poison weapon and fight and gain skill. 

Stealthing - Stealth through dungeons and gain skill. 

Etc.  Etc.

Every other skill you can PLAY the game.  Taming is timer based and boring.  Taming 1,000 polar bears is NOT fun.  If I could take a tamed polar bear and train him to gain skill or kill ettins for loot - now that is something.  

I'm merely pointing out why this game is so stupid and needs an overhaul if its EVER going to have a chance of attracting new players.  The same 60 year old vets that play are not a player base that can sustain.  No one wants to tame animals for 30 hours to gain skill.  If they could tame an animal and use it to PLAY and gain skill then its interesting.  

This playerbase is a mess. No one wants changes for improvement.  Just because it was slow and hard for you doesn't mean it always needs to be slow and hard.  

Dev teams main goal : Make the game fun.

Taming 1,000 polar bears is NOT fun.  Fix. 

popps

Theo said:

Marge said:

Actually, gaining by taming makes perfect sense for a skill called animal TAMING. To gain points for fighting with the pet, the skill would need to be called animal TRAINING.

Not that I don't think it would be nice to get gains that way but the manner of gain does suit the skill name.

Symantics of what the name of the skill is called is irrelevant.  The point is that you cannot adventure and PLAY the game in a meaningful way (adventure, kill, loot) by using animal taming. You stand around doing non-sense taming and releasing until you have sufficient skill. You tame and train your pets. You never actively gain or even use taming again for the most part. 

If I"m gaing cartography i can do Tmaps and get loot while I gain.  

Lockpicking I can pick chests and get loot and gain.

Crafting - do bods for rewards and gain skill.

Mace fighting - kill things and loot and gain skill.

Poisoning - Poison weapon and fight and gain skill. 

Stealthing - Stealth through dungeons and gain skill. 

Etc.  Etc.

Every other skill you can PLAY the game.  Taming is timer based and boring.  Taming 1,000 polar bears is NOT fun.  If I could take a tamed polar bear and train him to gain skill or kill ettins for loot - now that is something.  

I'm merely pointing out why this game is so stupid and needs an overhaul if its EVER going to have a chance of attracting new players.  The same 60 year old vets that play are not a player base that can sustain.  No one wants to tame animals for 30 hours to gain skill.  If they could tame an animal and use it to PLAY and gain skill then its interesting.  

This playerbase is a mess. No one wants changes for improvement.  Just because it was slow and hard for you doesn't mean it always needs to be slow and hard.  

Dev teams main goal : Make the game fun.

Taming 1,000 polar bears is NOT fun.  Fix. 

There is always Alacrity and Transcedence scrolls to gain skills faster....

And many Tamers, when they trained up their skills, did not have them as available....

McDougle

just use your mastery to gain in taming and lore .....

Tchalla

Theo said:

Marge said:

Actually, gaining by taming makes perfect sense for a skill called animal TAMING. To gain points for fighting with the pet, the skill would need to be called animal TRAINING.

Not that I don't think it would be nice to get gains that way but the manner of gain does suit the skill name.

Symantics of what the name of the skill is called is irrelevant.  The point is that you cannot adventure and PLAY the game in a meaningful way (adventure, kill, loot) by using animal taming. You stand around doing non-sense taming and releasing until you have sufficient skill. You tame and train your pets. You never actively gain or even use taming again for the most part. 

If I"m gaing cartography i can do Tmaps and get loot while I gain.  

Lockpicking I can pick chests and get loot and gain.

Crafting - do bods for rewards and gain skill.

Mace fighting - kill things and loot and gain skill.

Poisoning - Poison weapon and fight and gain skill. 

Stealthing - Stealth through dungeons and gain skill. 

Etc.  Etc.

Every other skill you can PLAY the game.  Taming is timer based and boring.  Taming 1,000 polar bears is NOT fun.  If I could take a tamed polar bear and train him to gain skill or kill ettins for loot - now that is something.  

I'm merely pointing out why this game is so stupid and needs an overhaul if its EVER going to have a chance of attracting new players.  The same 60 year old vets that play are not a player base that can sustain.  No one wants to tame animals for 30 hours to gain skill.  If they could tame an animal and use it to PLAY and gain skill then its interesting.  

This playerbase is a mess. No one wants changes for improvement.  Just because it was slow and hard for you doesn't mean it always needs to be slow and hard.  

Dev teams main goal : Make the game fun.

Taming 1,000 polar bears is NOT fun.  Fix. 

Fun is a very subjective word. I personally had quite a bit of fun taming polar bears for gains. I'd tame them, release them, kill them and get leather for my crafter.

Marge

Theo said:

This playerbase is a mess. No one wants changes for improvement.  Just because it was slow and hard for you doesn't mean it always needs to be slow and hard.  

I didn't say I didn't want improvement - in fact I said it would be great if we could gain that way.

Also, it was not slow and hard for me to gain; I used a mythic token. After using the token, I used the mastery. I didn't make a tamer until the masteries came out because I refused to do it the slow hard way.(In fact, I helped my husband make his tamer that way and refused to ever do it for myself that way.)

It also sounds as if one of your main complaints about taming the animals is you are not making gold. Tame a pet with good starting stats and sell it. You can get a Magincia Stall or advertise in gen chat.