Can we think about the option of having a few or one power set or power animation option that makes a single pet execute one or more of your power sets? This way you have a companion running along side you executing one? This is sort of reminiscent of something like Digimon or Monster Ranchers(I never liked this as much) Or some other animal pet, monster spirit explosion firing raising anime.
it would also be cool to customize them powers and appearance, give them a few different costume slots so you can actually make the completely different monster/animals. Whatever.
Stuff like that is being looked into!
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Lead Wanderer's idea is cool. But I'd even settle for a non-combat pet that would have as its main feature the ability to be customizable in the character creator with basically its own costume slot. I always wanted the ability in CoH to have a "Sidekick Pet" that would look any way I wanted him/her too as it followed me around.
Sure the idea of the Sidekick Pet being able to use its own unique powers (or be the focus point of your own powers) in combat would be super extra cool. But like I said I'd settle for something that had no combat effects as long as it could be completely customizable.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I'm glad to hear it's being discussed, I already saw that there were plans for "masterminds", but there were a lot of options within other slots for it. Plus a lot of concepts that use singular pets.
The ideas I had specifically were something like a pet that was set to follow and you activated powers from him, that defensively 'covered' your character in melee while you struck. Combining pet and other actions at the same time would net better results. Not sure what sort of style it emulates but it sort of seems like Sword Art online style, except (Hopefully) it could swap models...
It would also be cool to have that method work for character like Wonder Twins O.o Which were effectively useless. Jan was the main... What's his name was the sidekick.
There was an early update in the KS about being able to move your "launch site" for a power around, like a ray beam coming from your hand, your chest or your eyes, The graphic that was included in that post showed a bird pet floating above the shoulder of the hero shooting a beam from its mouth.
Also, a favorite idea of mine was broached about having ALL your powers activate through a shoulder- or follow-pet (although I'm not sure how the follow pet would work outside of the combat pets system).
It would be neat if the monkey on your back was the real hero!
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Yes I like the idea of a "Mastermind with one main pet" or even "an invulnerable permanent pet as the main focus point of where a character's powers originate from in combat" as long as it's balanced as a complete powerset designed for that.
But if you tried to make something like this a "temp power" and/or something any character could potentially have then it would become something EVERYONE would want (or even need) to stay competitive with everyone else, especially in PvP.
I guess the key point here is to make sure the "pet" in these cases doesn't somehow give an undue advantage to the characters who use them over people who aren't using pets like this.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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Actually, this isn't what I was talking about.
I was talking about the fact that the MWM team wants powers to be modular: EVERY powerset will have options on how the powers will activate, ones that won't actually change the power's effect, activation times or recharge times.
So, for example, if you're a brawler, and your first power is "strike" you could either punch, kick, knee, elbow, or headbut your opponent. OR, if you had a [b]Monkey On Your Back[/b], it could reach over and slap your opponent in the face! The effect and timing of the power would be the same regardless of the execution of the power (if I understood the devs' correctly)
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That's all fine. My point was that once you throw the vague concept of "pet" into the mix then you have to work out whether they'll be combat-oriented and/or targetable as separate entities. Using your example if for whatever reason your "monkey on your back" was more like a Mastermind pet than simply an "external origin point" for your powers then the balance equations would shift drastically.
All I'm saying is how ever they handle "external origin points" and/or "power origin pets" like this needs to be considered carefully.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I see balance issues with that, if they externalize the pet to be a source of other powersets instead of making a power set for the pet to execute, then you'd have two sets designed to originate from one point, but activating from two, I'm not sure if it would cause issues with attack chains, but it seems like there would be some balance issues.
The "One Pet" option spans a huge list of typical classes, from typical ranger with a wolf following him to card captors sakura and her transforming lion plushy. I really hope they make options that encompass both. Either way I don't think it will be out at release, I don't even mind that, cause it would give it time to mature properly.
I don't think that the invulnerable pet option would be good, I was thinking more along the lines of a hybrid style tank pet, you activate powers for it while it's in melee, while attacking from range or attacking from another place in melee, the pet releases AoE buffs for you and your team mates as a result of it, you do the same basically active as a buff/DPS character, that's just one idea though. Like masterminds the pet would take the agro from you and another character, the only problem is while your pet has huge defence, you don't, so you must be careful.
I also want to emphasize that it would be exceptionally awesome if we could pick to let other powers originate from the pet, it would work better if the pet was a previously set power so that it had 'independent' stats from yours. So long as the pet was a different unique classification as well you could tweak it's numbers for activating a specific power without tweaking the powers originating from the main character, since they're designed to execute from the hero.
Just as FYI what you described here (without the buffs you mentioned) is basically exactly the way Fire Imps from the Fire Controller powerset worked back in CoH. The three imps together acted as agro absorbers allowing a Fire Controller plenty of time to lock down a MOB before the MOB managed to do any serious damage to the Controller.
But again I'll bring up the concern I have of making sure this balanced in an overall way. Controllers were very squishy and had little in the way of their own DEF precisely because they had pets like Fire Imps which could balance out that disadvantage. If the Devs of CoT decide to give other types of powersets the concept of "Tanking pets" to help with their DEF they're probably going to make sure the users of those pets are intrinsically squishy like the Controllers were to counter-balance that.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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Yeah, I'd love a variety of options, tanker pets is just one in particular that fits the spirit partner manifestation idea. Buff pets too were frequent, but they were usually late game single option. This would kind of invert that and it does take a lot of thought to create something like that that's balanced and customizable.
I like what someone said about a sidekick pet. It would be cool if instead of having a primary and secondary power set, You had one set and the sidekick the other. Not sure if you want the sidekick to control its use of its powers or if the player controls the powers of both, either way, it would be a fun and different type of play.
Personally, I always wished I could form a team out of my own characters and run missions. It would be nice if you could even switch around which one you are controlling as a player. Essentially passing the team leadership and also the control to a different toon. I know that this is something that would probably never happen as it is essentially a different game if you do this, but man, would it be cool? Imagine the PVP of my team of heroes vs your team of villains.
Another cool option would be a completely seperate sidekicking option, let you play two characters at once, but one's religated to pet, gimped power sets. Basically has two characters active at once. Would be a funky system to work out though, cool for RP though!
You controlling your primary and your "sidekick" controlling your secondary is basically a form of the pet system, which we know is unlikely to be ready until after the game launches.
I do like the idea of a sidekick in concept, and that's basically what you get in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The only game I ever played that did this well was not an MMO obviously, but Dragon Age. Once you gathered your companions you could chose which character you acted through. The character you created acted on its own just like the game's NPC's did when you controlled one of them. However, I wouldn't want to be a single-player PvP team taking on a multi-player PvP team. I'm pretty sure I'd be screwed tactically.
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