Petition for a pet-less ranger option

[Alaris]

Actually, you can. Just not in the same way, which is one reason why it's superior. Another would be complete price visibility. A third would be instant and assured liquidity. A fourth would be a directly controllable gold sink (the spread).

In GW1, you can play the market over time, but not at a given time. Whether you are for or against the "buy low sell high" method of making profit, this is a personal opinion. I personally like it, and have done it with pigs in GW1 for example.

I have tried both systems, and frankly, I prefer WoW's trading system over GW's. But I'll admit, it's a question of preference. I prefer a trading system where you can shop for a better price, sell for a higher price if you're willing to wait, and not have to stand in town doing nothing while you do that.

Also, when you search for an item, you get a few matches and going prices, which gives you a pretty good idea of its worth.

No, true. For example, they have a good mail system. Oh wait you must pay to send mails.

So above you argue for a system with a controllable gold sink, and here you argue against a gold sink. I guess you like free mail.

[Skyy High]

This needs to be looked at not for a given statistic, not wholistically, but point-by-point.

If you adjust the petless buff so the ranger does the same dps as a pet ranger, then you might run into problems if the petless ranger can avoid damage better than the ranger with pet (i.e. if the pet gets pummeled and you keep losing it, it becomes better to play petless).

If you look only at success rate (a wholistic measure) then with and without pet can easily become a question of what style fits better the task or group. It may be that using a pet is better when you don't have a frontline, and worse when you do. The success rate won't show that, because these two alternatives will average out, at least until people figure it out and start using the pet only when advantageous to do so.

Point-by-point is looking at dps, survivability, interaction with the team, aggro, etc... and provide a solution that keeps petless and pet rangers about on-par on all of these points. It's not *that* hard to do especially since you already have to make a good pet AI anyways... it's just a question of buffing petless specifically in the areas that the pet helps. If for example, the extra tanking just compensates for the extra aggro, then there is no need to buff the petless for survivability. If the pet does X dps, then petless should be buffed by about X dps. If the pet allows to tank and therefore increase the damage done by AoE's, this you shouldn`t compensate for because grouping with a frontline will essentially give you the same advantage.

Sounds complicated? Well, turns out that this is one thing devs get paid for doing. As stated before, they already do all of what I said above when they balance professions, weapons, group vs solo play, ranged vs melee, etc.

tl;dr: it's impossible. Devs are not gods, and even if they were, there is no way they can balance something as esoteric as "if you keep your pet alive, you'll have x DPS, and if he dies you'll have y, and a petless ranger has z, and x > z > y for all cases, and pet survivability will be balanced in such a way that time-averaging x and y will produce a DPS equivalent to z". That is a stupendously ridiculous set of conditions to expect the devs to balance, and that is the absolute simplest expression of what they need to do. When you get into things like AI and how worthwhile it is to have a dumb pet that may or may not use its skills at the exact right time, compared to just directly controlling those abilities yourself, it's even more ridiculous to expect balance, because now we're not dealing with numbers that we can just plug into an equation.

Oh, and to whichever idiot asked why people use pets in GW1: because they like the idea of a pet enough that they're willing to gimp themselves. That's terrible balance, because it means the class can't use one of its featured mechanics without feeling like they're sacrificing power. PUGs certainly aren't happy to have a beastmaster along for the ride.

I want to play with my pet, which means I don't want anyone giving me any funny looks because I'm choosing a pet over <insert personal buff here>, and the only way for that to happen is for pet rangers to be guaranteed to be more powerful than petless rangers. As soon as they start trying to "balance" the two, you've lost it, because the AI issue will ensure that if the numbers (DPS, survivability, etc) are even remotely close, the petless option will always come out on top because you're not tied to a computer for your performance.

@rasp: Different strokes, mate. Playing the market is fun, sitting and waiting for the trader's prices to get where you want them to go is not. As for transparency, that's why they're implementing price trackers, and letting players post buy orders as well as sell orders. Those two things should go a long way to fixing the problems you seem to have with auction houses.

Also, gold sinks are good, and you admit this yourself, so idk why you're upset about mail costing gold.

[Alaris]

tl;dr: it's impossible. (...) x > z > y for all cases

Take a deep breath. Relax.

And remember that I am not insisting that the petless be balanced, but rather for the gimp to be less. In other words, if I got petless, I'd rather have a 10% reduction in efficiency rather than a 30%.

Oh, and to whichever idiot asked why people use pets in GW1: because they like the idea of a pet enough that they're willing to gimp themselves.

The zoo crew says hi. I also remember my share of RA teams where pets were an asset, not a gimp.

I want to play with my pet, which means I don't want anyone giving me any funny looks because I'm choosing a pet over <insert personal buff here>, and the only way for that to happen is for pet rangers to be guaranteed to be more powerful than petless rangers.

Agreed. See above. But the power difference doesn't have to be huge for that to happen.

As soon as they start trying to "balance" the two, you've lost it, because the AI issue will ensure that if the numbers (DPS, survivability, etc) are even remotely close, the petless option will always come out on top because you're not tied to a computer for your performance.

This is plain wrong. I just said you don't balance on dps alone, so please read my previous post. If you tl;dr, then please don't follow up with something that's already been addressed.

[BrotherGrimm]

Ok, this has turned into a self-centered, "I want to play THIS way and screw everyone else" support fest....good luck with that.

[Alaris]

Ok, this has turned into a self-centered, "I want to play THIS way and screw everyone else" support fest....good luck with that.

You are essentially saying that you don't want petless, and screw everyone who wants it. Why is your opinion better than mine?

I am sorry you *feel* that way, but what you feel is not an accurate representation of reality. Whenever I see valid concerns, I discuss them and offer ways that these problems may be fixed.

I might get annoyed at having to repeat the same arguments for people who don't bother reading this (admittedly long) thread, but at least I don't adopt the "screw everyone else" attitude.

[sorudo]

Where's the gimping? You play a minionless necro, all you lose is the extra damage your minions do. You play a petless ranger, same thing. This is not like GW1 where you needed to dedicate a portion of your skillbar to pets, the pet option has been seperated from your skillbar, the pets are a seperate mechanic.

so what's the problem, you said it your self it's the same thing.
remove the pet and you lose the dmg advantage, are ppl actually against the option or is this becoming in to a "i am right even if i am wrong" argument?

no pet = less damage.
if you have a problem with it, say what problem and don't hide behind some non-sense about how unfair it is that a ranger can then remove a pet, how is that unfair in any way.......

[DELTAg]

so what's the problem, ...

I haven't fully read the thread so I might be wrong but personally I think that some players would prefer playing without pets for the Looks.
They don't like animals, companions, don't find having a pet with you cool or tons of other reasons.
I can understand that altough I don't mind being forced to have a pet.
But imagine this:
You're a sneaky ranger, lurking in the shadows, jumping in the woods from tree to tree, unseen, while keeping an eye on your target and before your prey knows it, it has an arrow or dagger stuck in its skull.
Now that wouldn't be much of a sneaky story if you had a 682 kg (1,500 lb) bear with you who's growling and roaring (with his paw stuck in a jar of honey) while he's trying to fit himself between two trees and desperatly trying to catch up with you, alerting every single mob in the entire world of Tyria.
I know something like that can't happen in-game, but its just that some just don't want someone's nose stuck up theyr bum the whole time. Some just want to be alone.

Imagine you have to bear (pun intended) with a dancing pink fairy, who pukes rainbows all the time, following you EVERYWHERE the entire game just because you want to play your favourite class.

Again, I don't mind having pets at all, I like them, but I agree that it's cooler without them.

As for the Game Mechanics part why people wouldn't like them? I have no idea.

Then why are there GW1 rangers with pets?
Or worse, secondary rangers with pets, warriors even?

They are sharing power and likely even losing some by doing so.

I'm a Warrior and use pets. Go ahead, facepalm as hard as you can.
Why do I do it?
I just have this personal quest.. challange.. thing.
I would tame all available pets in GW1, put them in my Zaishen Menagerie and level them all to level 20. With no cheating. (Buying the pets, deathleveling them,...)
I already have all pets except for the Rainbow Phoenix (33/34) and 24 of them are level 20.
For me, it's really fun, altough frustrating at times.

[Skyy High]

Take a deep breath. Relax.

And remember that I am not insisting that the petless be balanced, but rather for the gimp to be less. In other words, if I got petless, I'd rather have a 10% reduction in efficiency rather than a 30%.

Right, like that'll go over well. Please. If you give any sort of buff for having a petless ranger, you'll just be legitimizing the playstyle. Instead of "oh, pets are universally good for me, I should learn how to use mine," you'll have "oh, I can leave my pet behind and get a buff, that's cool...pretty crappy buff though, wth is the underpowered s***?"

Furthermore, I thoroughly reject the notion that you can measure any kind of change in "efficiency" in terms of percentages, numbers, or anything else, when talking about the effectiveness of an AI in combat. Either it's worth bringing along, or it isn't; there will be no middle ground.

The zoo crew says hi.

You don't think that the fact that a particular group of players so loved their pets, and were so tired of being turned away by PUGs that they felt it necessary to form their own group, just to post updates to the effect of "yes, we really did this with these builds," doesn't prove my point? I didn't say taking a pet was an autofail, I said it gimped you, and it does. Remember when people ran all-mesmer groups, back when mesmers were universally regarded as terrible in PvE? Same thing.

Agreed. See above. But the power difference doesn't have to be huge for that to happen.

It will be f***ed up, I guarantee it. The scaling factor between how powerful a buff to your character is vs. how powerful an AI companion can be is too situational, too dependent on randomness, for them to get the balance right. Either petless rangers will remain hopelessly underpowered compared to pet rangers, or they'll be just powerful enough that it's a liability to bring a dumb pet along when you can just consolidate your power in your character.

Oh, furthermore, if all you want is a slight buff, here it is: don't waste your utility skills on pet-related stuff, don't bring a pet-related self heal, don't worry about flagging your pet in combat, don't bring any general non-beastmastery traits that benefit your pet. There, there's your slight buff over the ranger who wants to care about his pet.

This is plain wrong. I just said you don't balance on dps alone, so please read my previous post. If you tl;dr, then please don't follow up with something that's already been addressed.

FFS, if it were just DPS alone, it'd be easier to balance, but the AI makes it even more impossible; I repeated that sentiment at least twice already. My point in this paragraph was the same as every other post I've made in this thread: if you get petless rangers to the point where they're "close" to pet rangers on whatever metric you care to measure (numerical or otherwise), they will, in practice, actually hold the edge, regardless of what theory dictates, because the player won't have to worry about controlling a pseudo-random AI, which is something you simply can't take into account when talking about balance. Balancing for suboptimal situations is impossible, because there are infinite suboptimal situations.

[raspberry jam]

In GW1, you can play the market over time, but not at a given time. Whether you are for or against the "buy low sell high" method of making profit, this is a personal opinion. I personally like it, and have done it with pigs in GW1 for example.

I have tried both systems, and frankly, I prefer WoW's trading system over GW's. But I'll admit, it's a question of preference. I prefer a trading system where you can shop for a better price, sell for a higher price if you're willing to wait, and not have to stand in town doing nothing while you do that.

Also, when you search for an item, you get a few matches and going prices, which gives you a pretty good idea of its worth.

I'm in favor of an economy that gets people what they want. A trader house would definitely do that, especially if it replaces normal merchants entirely: after playing a while, every single skin would be available, priced according to rarity. Every single mod, every component... Solving in an instant every problem of the GW1 economy. For example, buying a specific but non-rare skin would often be harder than buying a rare one. Not with a trader house. While it's true that powertrading would be less of a possibility, this would encourage people to play the game, and it would free up time which they would otherwise feel obliged to spend on the market (as was the case in GW1).

As for playing the market at a given time, see below.

So above you argue for a system with a controllable gold sink, and here you argue against a gold sink. I guess you like free mail.

The WoW mail price is not intended as a gold sink but as an immersion device.

Different strokes, mate. Playing the market is fun, sitting and waiting for the trader's prices to get where you want them to go is not. As for transparency, that's why they're implementing price trackers, and letting players post buy orders as well as sell orders. Those two things should go a long way to fixing the problems you seem to have with auction houses.

So instead of waiting for a trader, you will be waiting for a price tracker. Unless you have a controlling amount of supply, you will not be able to affect a market with high price visibility sufficiently to "play" it anyway. A trader house is the exact same thing as an auction house with a (working) price tracker, except that the payout for sold items is instant instead of having to wait around for your cash.

[sorudo]

I haven't fully read the thread so I might be wrong but personally I think that some players would prefer playing without pets for the Looks.
They don't like animals, companions, don't find having a pet with you cool or tons of other reasons.
I can understand that altough I don't mind being forced to have a pet.
But imagine this:
You're a sneaky ranger, lurking in the shadows, jumping in the woods from tree to tree, unseen, while keeping an eye on your target and before your prey knows it, it has an arrow or dagger stuck in its skull.
Now that wouldn't be much of a sneaky story if you had a 682 kg (1,500 lb) bear with you who's growling and roaring (with his paw stuck in a jar of honey) while he's trying to fit himself between two trees and desperatly trying to catch up with you, alerting every single mob in the entire world of Tyria.
I know something like that can't happen in-game, but its just that some just don't want someone's nose stuck up theyr bum the whole time. Some just want to be alone.

Imagine you have to bear (pun intended) with a dancing pink fairy, who pukes rainbows all the time, following you EVERYWHERE the entire game just because you want to play your favourite class.

Again, I don't mind having pets at all, I like them, but I agree that it's cooler without them.

As for the Game Mechanics part why people wouldn't like them? I have no idea.

i'm not against pet-less rangers, i am actually 100% for it.
i think you read my post a bit wrong