|
Pets
Oct 4, 2016 11:32:54 GMT -5
Post by electrohydra on Oct 4, 2016 11:32:54 GMT -5
Are currently terribly lackluster, dying half way through even the weakest encounters, and being down to 1/5 of their maximum hp halfway through even short, starter dungeons, and doing mediocre damage at best. And this is something that requires possibly the most feat investments out of all styles.
|
|
|
Pets
Oct 8, 2016 16:38:09 GMT -5
Post by electrohydra on Oct 8, 2016 16:38:09 GMT -5
Bump. Now that pet HP bug is fixed, I did a Graveyard run with my Badger (http://engines.freeforums.net/thread/1406/graveyard-report). By the end of the run, his max hp was down from 75 to 13, and was dying within the first few hits of the fight. He must have spent around 2/3s of the dungeon lying down.
This is because NWN2 AI tends to aggro already injured targets. The pet being less tanky then a PC, takes damage, and from that point on just keeps being focused down, which makes him take more damage, which means he gets focused even more, in a nice viscious circle of dead pets.
Pets returning to full health between combats would make the AI ignore them (as they should, in favor of the more threatening PC) more often unless the PC specifically uses the mob-aggro grabbing skill of Command : Defend.
|
|
|
Pets
Oct 10, 2016 2:35:16 GMT -5
Post by electrohydra on Oct 10, 2016 2:35:16 GMT -5
Another run down, pet is still made of paper. By the time I reached the lower level of the crypt, my pet was down to 23 maximum hit point. By the end of the dungeon, he was down to EIGHT maximum hit points. He spent about 3/4 of the whole dungeon lying down. I would have probably been better off just not bringing him along and enjoying the extra stamina. And that's with 3 feats invested.
|
|
|
Pets
Oct 18, 2016 2:07:18 GMT -5
Post by electrohydra on Oct 18, 2016 2:07:18 GMT -5
Just made a run of the Red Lights Bandits. All my relevant skills are between rank 14 and 16, including animal training 15. Badger is level 10 (Not that level seems to change much so far), feats invested into pets are Hunt Training, Guard Training, Animal Empathy and Animal Taming.
Pet actually survived most fights..... except the ones where I needed him. He would do fine when it was against a single bandit (which where easy fights with or without him) but would die in about 3 rounds against multiple bandits. He still attracted aggro like a magnet.
I also kept a count of how much damage he did, and how much damage I did. Note that my character is a pure, pure tank : Heavy Armor, Sword and Board, Parry are his non-pet feats. He's not supposed to do a lot of damage. And yet... my character did 601 damage through the dungeon. My pet did 55. That's 8.3% of my total damage output that came from my pet. Very, very little for a tank with 40% of my feats invested into pets.
|
|
|
Pets
Oct 18, 2016 4:08:58 GMT -5
Post by kaincallavis on Oct 18, 2016 4:08:58 GMT -5
Can confirm. Pets are poop.
But on a slightly more useful note. Pets are still generating a great deal of agro and they only gain xp by dealing damage. There are literally tons of places where pets' damage is simply too low to get them any pet XP even in a level appropriate zone.
Might be a worthwhile investment to consider giving pets mods and giving pet XP upon pets TAKING damage to help compensate how PAINFULLY slow they are to level up. At least this way if they go down you know they got a little something for it first... assuming you don't wipe.
|
|
|
Post by ronan on Nov 12, 2016 11:54:17 GMT -5
Pets are still horribly in need of buffing.
My poor level 1 shepherd struggles in vain against even the beetles and rats I've been recommended to level her on.
It takes an inordinate investment of time to level up your pet compared to leveling a skill..... and that is only to level your PET, so they stand a chance of hitting in an area that would actually contribute to leveling Animal Taming itself, to be able to equip a better pet.
Pets are wonderful from an RP perspective at the moment. Not so much from any other.
|
|
|
Pets
Nov 12, 2016 12:10:16 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Lugwy on Nov 12, 2016 12:10:16 GMT -5
Pets rely on someone else to take aggro in the early levels. Sometimes, just for fun, I take my level 2 shepherd to the Factory. He does fine there as long as grenades aren't involved and I fight alongside him.
|
|
|
Pets
Nov 12, 2016 13:40:59 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by ronan on Nov 12, 2016 13:40:59 GMT -5
Oh yes, I keep my pet on stand ground until I engage first to take the aggro. The problem is they level very slowly, and AT levels not at all without a significantly greater time investment than it takes to put into other skills..... AND they cost a large stamina investment to bring along which their effectiveness currently does not justify.
Literally bringing a pet along at this point just handicaps you and the gain on your other skills.
I think the pets themselves need a buff in AB perhaps, to hit more often and make them more viable possibly, assuming the pet gains XP on hit and not kill..... this would also increase the gain for AT.
Also, maybe animal training could be tweaked to get xp increases both when the pet does damage and when the pet takes damage, to account for wonky NwN AI always seeming to change aggro to it eventually, especially if you throw on block to try and let the pet get in more hits than yourself.
Does the pet itself get xp on hit or on actual kills?
|
|
|
Pets
Nov 12, 2016 14:58:02 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Lugwy on Nov 12, 2016 14:58:02 GMT -5
I don't know about pet EXP, but dealing damage with the pet increases AT. Agreed that the levelling rate seems off somewhere as my dog is only level 2 despite me having AT 4.
Another thing I noticed is that a lot of animal trainers seem to be wearing heavier armour, which may be part of the issue behind some of the complaints around pet utility (aggro, stamina cost). In light armour neither of the two issues listed were a problem for me as with a bit of positioning mobs invariably preferred to attack me over the dog, and 20 stamina is an acceptable price to pay when you still have 4/5 of the bar to spend afterwards.
|
|
|
Pets
Nov 12, 2016 15:32:43 GMT -5
Post by electrohydra on Nov 12, 2016 15:32:43 GMT -5
Pet XP does seem to be a (minor) issue. Even at AT 18, my badger is level 16 and doesn't seem like it will catch up before I get to the next tier of animal and have to start over from level 1. So yeah, the pet itself always lags behind in level.
And when you're in Heavy armor, you want the mobs to hit you, not your pet. When you're in Light armor, you want the mobs to hit your pet not you (Because you're made of paper). So it's kind of the reverse of what it should be right now.
|
|
|
Pets
Nov 12, 2016 16:56:33 GMT -5
Post by Lugwy on Nov 12, 2016 16:56:33 GMT -5
Treating an injured pet takes a bit more legwork than treating yourself, so if nothing else, even in light armor I'd still prefer mobs to hit me. Having the Armor of paper is mitigated by having the Dodge to no-sell roughly half the incoming attacks, though (but it's still a flaw in how vanilla NWN2 handles AC/Dodge). Some zones are better at leveling pets than others; for example, I picked Factory because the spawn numbers scale to the player, so it lets me have a better time dictating the flow of engagement and better allows the pet to remain out of harm's way.
Maybe the AT/pet level disparity issue might be related to bXP affecting AT but not the pets themselves. I don't know the feasibility of a system that lets bXP be consumed by the pet, though.
|
|
|
Pets
Nov 12, 2016 17:09:07 GMT -5
Post by electrohydra on Nov 12, 2016 17:09:07 GMT -5
It doesn't have anything to do with bXP, Hakon almost never has bXP.
And all the low level areas scale in number with party size.
|
|
|
Pets
Nov 12, 2016 17:31:20 GMT -5
Post by Lugwy on Nov 12, 2016 17:31:20 GMT -5
The Crypt is the exception to that clause, making it more dangerous to trek solo than in a group. (The Graveyard outside scales to party size, though.)
EXP disparity can have to do with bXP at the time you get them. If both pet EXP and AT EXP advance at the same rate without bXP, then the addition of bXP gives AT a lead that can't be shaken off. While abandoning your pet resets its EXP progress, I also suspect AT EXP is retained across deaths but I'll need more observations to be sure.
|
|