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Right now, the timer for the wait for the pet ball is associated directly with the player. Meaning, a player can hit one pet ball, then must wait the 10 seconds (I think that's what it is) before hitting it, or any other pet ball, again. It effectively forces the pet balls to chain in increments of 10 seconds, no matter which pet the balls may be linked to.

This chaining effect feels overkill when you are working with several pets and several pet balls at the same time. You send your pets out, and then hit a pet ball to recall one, and then you cannot recall the other one until 10 seconds later. It doesn't feel right that way. It's like you expect each 10-second delay to be related to a ball's use on that particular pet, not to what you did to a different pet a moment ago.

If you're using two pets, the pair of balls has the effect of causing the individual pets to have 20-second timers if you alternate your ball usage back and forth between both. The length increases as you add pets - a pack of frenzied ostards would take 40 seconds to be recalled to you, assuming the first hit on the first ball wasn't affected by any delay, and 50 seconds if you tried to move the whole pack a second time.

The picture I had of a smooth operation was 10 seconds for each individual pet. You could send several pets out, and then if you had not been using the balls recently, you could summon them back without leaving some stuck out there by themselves for 10 + 10 + etc. seconds.

Maybe the timer could be put onto the individual pet instead of the player's use of a ball? It should be doable such that multiple pet balls on a single pet won't work to defeat the intended wait time.

I believe that in this form it still solves the issues that the change was intended to. Also, I'm not sure the tamers realize how this chaining effect is going to kick in with multiple balls (I might have missed where someone talked about it, but yeah). I for one had trouble finding 2 pet balls to even test with on TC and ended up doing it the long way, killing solen queens (doh).

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Two other things:

2d client: When you tell your pet to guard you, you see the guarding flag appear on the pet, and the guarded flag appears under you. Then when you say "all stop", the guarding flag quickly disappears from the pet but the client is still saying "guarded" for you. You're not actually being guarded, though, and if you log out and log back in, the client no longer says "guarded" on you.

And this exists in production as well as on TC1: if you feed a pet, it ceases to follow whatever its most recent movement command was. If it's supposed to be following or staying, it stops doing so and begins to wander aimlessly.

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Here's a half a thing:

The pets' willingness to "protect" their owners is based upon the monsters initial attack (or auto-attack) on the player, before the player has even taken damage. I like this, but I also note that if the player says "all guard me" after this initial "attack" has occurred, the pets will not do anything protection-like, and are willing to stand and watch as the evil, assaulting monster rips the pet owner to shreds (heh). In one's wish list, one could say that in addition to what happens now, it would be nice if the pets were able to recognize when an attack of this sort is going on and respond to "all guard me" even after an attack has initiated.

Overall it's a great improvement over what was there before! The pets are a million times more responsive to the "all follow me" thing, and they actually listen in the face of distractions, picture that!

I didn't get to test any of the behaviors in PVP, this was all relative to monsters. :/

Hi revenant2,

I'll pass on your feedback to the live team about the pet ball being tied to the pet and not the owner.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Designer, Ultima Online
EA Mythic

Leurocian
UO Lead Designer
Loc: Fairfax, VA
Re: Three and a half-things about the pet changes on TC:
03/25/08 11:04 AM

We want to thank everyone for giving us your input on the Crystal Ball of Pet Summoning and its current use in PvP. After assessing your feedback, we have decided that the following adjustments are needed:
* Pet summoning balls should unhide the summoner when attempting to summon her pet.
* Pet summoning balls should have a couple second casting animation with the chance to disrupt like other spellcasting.
* Pet summoning balls should have a reuse delay of 15 seconds.
* Pet summoning balls cannot be used while in animal form.

We feel these changes should balance the Crystal Ball of Pet Summoning in PvP while having minimal impact in PvM. QA is currently reviewing these changes internally. Once the changes pass internal review, they should appear on a public Test Center for an upcoming publish.

Once these changes are on Test Center, please be sure to send us your feedback on these changes.

Good gaming!

Leurocian
UO Lead Designer
Loc: Fairfax, VA
Update: Crystal Ball of Pet Summoning and PvP
03/04/08 07:19 AM

That statement is tragically funny And of course, one of the main reasons, we're investigating possible solutions for this issue.

Leurocian
UO Lead Designer
Loc: Fairfax, VA
Re: Summoning Pet Balls, Animal Form, and Pets
02/26/08 07:39 AM

That may be a good start to test.

Message displaying a tamer is summoning a pet = Great idea

That has possibilities.

Inability to use pet ball while in animal form = Great idea

This seems to be a strong suggestion that specifically targets the current imbalance in PvP, with minimal impact in PvM.

Inablilty to use pet ball in entire T2A area = Great idea

This suggestion I'll have to explore more and see what the team thinks.

Increase of # of charges it takes to summon pet = Good idea

May or may not be necessary if we do what I've presented in the original thread. Definitely open to further discussion though.

Delays in pets arrival = bad idea
Delays in pets listening to master = bad idea

Yeah, these suggestions don't seem as strong as the others. So I tend to agree here.

Thanks for the feedback so far!

Just my opinions of course.

Leurocian
UO Lead Designer
Loc: Fairfax, VA
Re: Summoning Pet Balls, Animal Form, and Pets
02/26/08 07:31 AM

---

I read a post where a casting timer equivalent to 7th or 8th circle may be one possibility, and then perhaps a reuse timer after the pet is summoned. That may address the free hit you bring up.

If we did decide to go this after, how long do you think the reuse timer should be?

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Designer, Ultima Online
EA Mythic

Leurocian
UO Lead Designer
Loc: Fairfax, VA
Re: Summoning Pet Balls, Animal Form, and Pets
02/26/08 07:25 AM

Just letting you know we have been reading your feedback on summoning pet balls, animal form, and pets.

Some of the suggestions I've seen target reducing effectiveness of one or more of these three things.

At the moment, I'm more inclined to look at the summoning pet balls first and see if we want to make any changes to it. One of the main suggestions I have seen that has possibilities is to require a reuse timer for the summoning pet balls, and perhaps don't allow them to be used while in animal form.

Let's try and only discuss pet summoning ball specific changes in this thread. I'd like to gather specific feedback on them.

Thanks all!

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott

Leurocian
UO Lead Designer
Loc: Fairfax, VA
Summoning Pet Balls, Animal Form, and Pets
02/26/08 07:03 AM

Mr Tact