Dog Days to Come (Adjusting Wolf Companions)

Thothie

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So, seems our puppers need a bit of reworking, and some of the older ones might be losing their ludicrous DPS value as a result. Was hoping to give the wolves some new abilities to help compensate for this nerf, and perhaps, to make them more useful and fun all around.

Outside of combat options, this includes some navigation fixes and a resurrection system.

So far, the proposals for changes have included everything from minor adjustments to a whole new system of role based wolves of roughly equal but varying powers and stats. As well as allowing players to transfer some or all of the previous pet's XP to their new one, when replacing their old companions.

Not putting up the poll yet, so much as seeing what sorta suggestions might fly in to assemble one. There'll be some time before I get back to this, as I'm currently working on the "NOV2015b" minor patch idea, and will likely return to the lore system when I'm done with that. So there's time to iron out details...

The combat role wolf idea seems to center around making the standard wolf a buffer type, the Shadowwolf a combat type, and the Ice wolf a tank type. The buffer type granting various temporary random buffs with its howl, the Shadowwolf adding stacks of fire vulnerability to enemies and having less health but more damage, and the Ice wolf, apparently just being all around tough as nails, with more health, and less damage.

There's also been the suggestion to simply make various minor adjustments to the wolves (slightly buffing the standard wolf and shadow wolf, maybe nerfing the winter wolf slightly), but otherwise basically keeping the wolves as they are now, save with DOT scaling with level, and some minor additional abilities at their later levels (including, for the Shadowwolf, the fire vulnerability debuff ability mentioned above).

So feel free to discuss, and I'll try to get a list of acceptable ideas folks can agree on assembled in this top post, eventually forming a poll to see what we'll ultimately go with, as it gets closer to time to actually tackle the issue.
 

Monika's_BFFEx0256

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It would be nice to have more than just wolves as pets, too.. but I understand how much more work that would be.
 

Dridmar

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Yes.. will we finally get a pet Gloam?
 

Jonzay

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While I have a few ideas and thoughts, I don't really want to discuss changes to the game until after a patch is released - as much as Thothie has assured us that any action made on suggestions will be performed far in the future, I'd hate for a particularly good idea to enter development and cause the already 4 year wait to extend any further.
 

Kanta

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While I have a few ideas and thoughts, I don't really want to discuss changes to the game until after a patch is released - as much as Thothie has assured us that any action made on suggestions will be performed far in the future, I'd hate for a particularly good idea to enter development and cause the already 4 year wait to extend any further.
This is kind of one of the current "requirements" for bug fixing in the upcoming patch, at the moment, so discussion is encouraged and has an extremely low chance of actually impacting the time it will take to get to the next version.

I doubt Thothie will take on anything too intense like feeding your wolf dog treats to increase a friendship meter so it doesn't run away.
 
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Thothie

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Yeah, something needs to be done, but it'll need to be something quick and simple. Can't do anything too elaborate under the current engine, anyways. Eventually, yes, we'll get more companions, and perhaps a rework of the whole system, but at the moment, just trying to fix one of those many simple little things that's been horribly broken and abused for a long time, and give a little something to make up for the loss.

Think "class wolves" is about the limit of complexity I'd be willing to invest in at the moment - even there, working out abilities unlocking at certain levels might be rough, both on string space and time.
 

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1) wolves/pets can be used for extra storage by carrying some game items with them.
2) gives pets the ability to heal players automatically when their owner becomes low of hitpoints.
3) pets having the ability to revive players when the player dies.
 
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Thothie

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1) wolves/pets can be used for extra storage by carrying some game items with them.
2) gives pets the ability to heal players automatically when their owner becomes low of hitpoints.
3) pets having the ability to revive players when the player dies.
That first one is more the sort of idea I was looking for - and I feel like an idiot for not having thought of it. It wouldn't be too complicated to do - just include the storage script and put a number of items cap in it, so it won't be as likely to crash as the Galat Chest nor defeat the burner.

Two is an option... Three, getting a revival system is on the to-do list, but likely too complex for the next patch, and as its primary purpose is to give more reasons to have another active player around, probably not throwing that to the wolves.
 

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1) wolves/pets can be used for extra storage by carrying some game items with them.
2) gives pets the ability to heal players automatically when their owner becomes low of hitpoints.
3) pets having the ability to revive players when the player dies.

Maybe.
No.
Absolutely NOT.

As stated before, please do NOT give wolves the ability to heal/buff players with damage resistance. Especially if it is limited to a certain class of wolf because I'm willing bet most players would choose to have a healer companion over any other kind. This ruins one of the small aspects of teamplay we can hold onto.
 

TheOysterHippopotami

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That first one is more the sort of idea I was looking for - and I feel like an idiot for not having thought of it. It wouldn't be too complicated to do - just include the storage script and put a number of items cap in it, so it won't be as likely to crash as the Galat Chest nor defeat the burner.
If this is possible then what's stopping us from putting legs on our treasure chest model and having a pet mimic?
 

Thothie

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In addition to defeating the burner, animations are hard. ;)

Though sticking a treasure chest on a headcrab model and having it scurry off into a maze when you try to open it, is a cute idea.

As stated before, please do NOT give wolves the ability to heal/buff players with damage resistance. Especially if it is limited to a certain class of wolf because I'm willing bet most players would choose to have a healer companion over any other kind. This ruins one of the small aspects of teamplay we can hold onto.
Fair point, though if the resist buffs were short and random (only last as long as the duration between howls), or the emergency heal only gave you back say, max 10% of your health and had a 5-15 minute cooldown, I don't think it'd impact what little teamplay we have going all that much - though yes, teamplay would be the only reason to have a revive system that didn't involve a consumable.
 

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I think that whatever buffs the wolf applies, has to be limited towards itself, not the owner. If the pet gets stronger or decides to heal, i would rather see this focused towards the pet, not the player. If anything, perhaps share it with friendly npcs (again, not the player). I'm fairly certain that if you give automatic heals to the wolves towards the player, that it is very likely to break the game even further, balance wise, even if the heals is low.


As for the 3 suggestions by lion, they are all good, but i do think they should be kept away from pet wolves, maybe except for #1.
1) Sounds like a good idea, having some a specific amount of storage in a wolf pet (i would associate storage size to capability of pet, a bird would carry the least amount of items for obvious reasons or no items at all)

2)Good idea but should only be applied to the pets/npcs themselves, not the players. Players do not need more healing right now, despite all the nerfs that HC has gotten. There are quick ways to recover hp and there are also ways to prevent huge loss of hp during battle. Having something like this towards a specific type of wolf would just force people to go along with that specific wolf, the same way the current ice wolf is the strongest of the bunch, almost nobody uses regular or shadow wolves.

3)Good idea, but not for pets. I think something like that should be limited towards players and npcs that follow you in maps.


Anyways, reading #1 brought me with the idea of "pet banking", runescape uses this system with some pets in the game, you can send an item in your inventory to your bank. So, i thought that maybe, the wolf could have a deposit only feature that deposits things directly in the galat chest. If you want to withdraw anything, you would have to summon the chest. Not sure if this is any good when it comes to stability related stuff, as it implies the wolf depositing things directly into the chest for you.
 

Thothie

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Anyways, reading #1 brought me with the idea of "pet banking", runescape uses this system with some pets in the game, you can send an item in your inventory to your bank. So, i thought that maybe, the wolf could have a deposit only feature that deposits things directly in the galat chest. If you want to withdraw anything, you would have to summon the chest. Not sure if this is any good when it comes to stability related stuff, as it implies the wolf depositing things directly into the chest for you.
That's possible, and a little easier on quest string data, at least (same effort code wise) - would still need the whole storage script attached, but only enable deposit. Shouldn't involve any stability issues. Wouldn't apply as much utility though. Otherwise, could do something like add backpack upgrades for the wolves later - if we end up keeping tiered wolves, maybe provide more storage for each tier (5/10/15), otherwise a flat 10+possible upgrades. Might not be too hard to stick a satchel model on them, provided no more bones are involved.

We're outta bones on that merged model (msc/monsters/giant_rat.mdl contains the summoned rat, snake, bear, and wolves), so that's part of what has been warding off new pets: would need to add a new model to the precache overhead. That might be less of an issue under Sven.
 

Thothie

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Not got me, yet... Tried a hundred different ways to get NOV2015b done with the requested changes, without stripping too many key features, swapping optimizations between versions and making them play nice. Finally thought I had it working, but there was an "accident" with that build, and after recovering from said, either I've not recreated it perfectly, or it wasn't as consistently loading newer resource heavy maps as I thought.

So... New approach. Using the current code with mostly the older scripts. Seems to offer more wiggle room. Hopefully end result will be that NOV2015b will have all the HUD/inventory enhancements of ALP2020, with the same basic gameplay and world folks are already used to, and none of the critical script side bugs the current alpha has. Sticky bit is making the old scripts play nice with the new code (there's some incompatibility), and the scripts I do have to optimize, but it seems to be loading maps right, even with minimal optimization - just, not yet playable that way. Wish I could give an ETA - I'm aiming for the first, but I'm sure some new pitfall is going to reveal itself (in addition to the complication that the FN interface will change - so making it live will take some doing). ...or corona-chan will get me.
 

Monika's_BFFEx0256

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Glad to hear you're doing alright.... Hmm, I see.. Would surely be an excellent April Fool's Day if we got a patch! You got this! šŸ™ƒ
 

Kanta

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NOV2015b wont fix crashes between levels/memory errors right?
 

Thothie

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Nein. Nothing short of a miracle from coder Jesus will fix the transition bugs (seems, even in Svencoop). Though, like ALP2020, it will make some memory deallocation errors non-fatal that it maybe, possibly, shouldn't, but should distribute a warning when they happen, or when connecting to a server where there's been a server side one since the last reset. Like ALP2020, it should also reset completely with each map change, so if things get too strange, mapvote should fix it, assuming things haven't gotten so strange you can't, in which case, abandon ship, and server will reset.

edit: ...and like ALP2020 - it seems to have the inability to chat bug... Gersh, dernit. Pestering the coder St. Paul, on his birthday no less.
 

Thothie

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Fix is going to take some doing - not MiB's fault, but GitHub's. Since Microsoft took over they changed how UTF-8 conversion works, so we lose all our upperscores ("ĀÆ") among some other odd characters commonly used in the HLSDK (edit: more accurately, an invisible and unsearchable character gets embedded with them, but ends up in compile, thus mismatches when compared post compile). This is oddly why I abandoned our last repo service - dunno how long before GitHub becomes useless, but Microsoft is pretty good at destroying everything they acquire. Looking into workarounds.
 

Kanta

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Man, way to go Microsoft. That makes me upset.
 

Thothie

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Just recently managed to fix the chat bug, ironing out ways to fix the remainder of related issues. (I just gotta be very careful when I launch GitHub, it isn't logged into the MSC account, until I find/apply a more permanent solution.) Then I just pray this mish mash of versions all plays nice together in more thorough testing, beyond just successfully loading maps, before I dare toss it at the alpha group to tell me what else broke.

Seems I get three hours a week on this thing, if I'm lucky and don't get inerupted, so it be slow going.
 

Kanta

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When the time comes to make these wolf changes, a model change (ugh) might be in order since the current one is some modification of a werewolf playermodel, which in itself is a port of the werewolf model from Morrowind.
 
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