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Pet Management panel redesign idea ➡ Wardrobe for pet skins, plus free beast skill selection


Lonami.2987

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The game is full of awesome animal species. Rangers can use some of them as pets, but there are many subspecies that aren't available for taming, even when the models are already ingame.

Few examples: Sand Lioness, Prestige Hyena, Elonian Drake, Smogscale, Hirsute Ice Spider, Basenji Dog, Ice Shark, Fire Stalker, Golden Moa, and Tropical Birds.

So, how could we implement these as playable pets? First, lets start from the beginning:


Pets are classified as follows:

  • Family: The parent species, pets of the same family share 3/4 of their pet skills, as well as their base stats. There's a total of 18 families in the game.
  • Pet: The subspecies, each has an unique skin plus an unique beast skill. There's a total of 55 pets in the game (4 of them are GW1-exclusives, and work as duplicates of already existing pets).

Pets are also classified by the environment they can be used in:

  • Terrestrial: 12 families, 33 pets.
  • Amphibious: 4 families, 17 pets.
  • Aquatic: 3 families, 5 pets.

Additionally, the feline family has terrestrial and amphibious members, and 7 families only have 1 pet.

Looks pretty simple, right? One would figure individual pets had more to them than this, but the family is what really matters here.


If pets of a single family have so much in common, why not make things simpler? Here's my proposal for a Pet Management panel redesign:

ianA0Jx.png

The primary advantage of this system is that, by splitting subspecies from their beast skills, the developers can implement new pet skins without having to worry about new skills. Identically, developers can implement new skills without having to find dedicated pet skins for them. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

Some amphibian subspecies could be limited to one environment only, depending on the animations of the original model. Felines would be specially affected by this.


That's pretty much it, hope you like the idea! Sometimes, simple solutions are the best =).

Also, default pet names include up to 26 characters, but custom pet names only allow up to 13. Remove this limitation, or let people "reset" their pet names back to their original "Juvenile Subspecies" nomenclature.


Check my other threads!

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I love the idea, all of it. Great job!

However is could see a caveat, How would you solve the issue of not having any indicator of which is the beast skill chosen?

I mean right now in pvp if you see a pet you more or less know what to expect, but if the beast skill can now be choosen freely how the player can be prepared to counter the F2 skill? Archetype would not be enough as same archetype could be shared.

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@anduriell.6280 said:I love the idea, all of it. Great job!

However is could see a caveat, How would you solve the issue of not having any indicator of which is the beast skill chosen?

I mean right now in pvp if you see a pet you more or less know what to expect, but if the beast skill can now be choosen freely how the player can be prepared to counter the F2 skill? Archetype would not be enough as same archetype could be shared.

Why should it be any different than the way you judge what skills an enemy player slots?

Rangers should definitely have more control over their pets/beasts and what skills they have.

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Proposed this many many many times already before and i would love to see that.

It would bring more attention to the skills and would grant us the ability to customise our pet more to our content.I would love to use the dublicating shout of the hyena on my fernhound or use the new elonian river drake skin for my swamp drake pet.

It would bring so much more customisability without adding complexity.

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@anduriell.6280 said:I love the idea, all of it. Great job!

However is could see a caveat, How would you solve the issue of not having any indicator of which is the beast skill chosen?

I mean right now in pvp if you see a pet you more or less know what to expect, but if the beast skill can now be choosen freely how the player can be prepared to counter the F2 skill? Archetype would not be enough as same archetype could be shared.

This could be implemented with the enable standard model option.

So no skins for players would also mean no skin for pets.

That would be the most elegant solution IMO.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@"anduriell.6280" said:I love the idea, all of it. Great job!

However is could see a caveat, How would you solve the issue of not having any indicator of which is the beast skill chosen?

I mean right now in pvp if you see a pet you more or less know what to expect, but if the beast skill can now be choosen freely how the player can be prepared to counter the F2 skill? Archetype would not be enough as same archetype could be shared.

I don't think it matters that much, since you can't know player skills or traits either.

Still, if for whatever reason this happened to be such an important issue, a simple effect tooltip on the pet would be more than enough, similar to the "active legend" effect revenants get so players can tell which legend they're using.

@Abyssisis.3971 said:Ranger pets aren’t like the minions of other classes that are just summoned and this is what you get, ranger pets are raised and trained so it only makes sense that we get to select what abilities they have.

Completely agree.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Proposed this many many many times already before and i would love to see that.

It would bring more attention to the skills and would grant us the ability to customise our pet more to our content.I would love to use the dublicating shout of the hyena on my fernhound or use the new elonian river drake skin for my swamp drake pet.

It would bring so much more customisability without adding complexity.

Exactly, and the best part is that we are spending a grand total of zero new resources on any of these new pet skins, since they would be recycled straight from already existing creatures.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

@"Lonami.2987" said:The game is full of awesome animal species. Rangers can use some of them as pets, but there are many subspecies that aren't available for taming, even when the models are already ingame.

Few examples: Sand Lioness, Prestige Hyena, Elonian Drake, Smogscale, Hirsute Ice Spider, Basenji Dog, Ice Shark, Fire Stalker, Golden Moa, and Tropical Birds.

So, how could we implement these as playable pets? First, lets start from the beginning:


Pets are classified as follows:

  • Family: The parent species, pets of the same family share 3/4 of their pet skills, as well as their base stats. There's a total of 18 families in the game.
  • Pet: The subspecies, each has an unique skin plus an unique beast skill. There's a total of 55 pets in the game (4 of them are GW1-exclusives, and work as duplicates of already existing pets).

Pets are also classified by the environment they can be used in:

  • Terrestrial: 12 families, 33 pets.
  • Amphibious: 4 families, 17 pets.
  • Aquatic: 3 families, 5 pets.

Additionally, the feline family has terrestrial and amphibious members, and 7 families only have 1 pet.

Looks pretty simple, right? One would figure individual pets had more to them than this, but the family is what really matters here.


If pets of a single family have so much in common, why not make things simpler? Here's my proposal for a Pet Management panel redesign:

ianA0Jx.png

The primary advantage of this system is that, by splitting subspecies from their beast skills, the developers can implement new pet skins without having to worry about new skills. Identically, developers can implement new skills without having to find dedicated pet skins for them. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

Some amphibian subspecies could be limited to one environment only, depending on the animations of the original model. Felines would be specially affected by this.


That's pretty much it, hope you like the idea! Sometimes, simple solutions are the best =).

Also, default pet names include up to 26 characters, but custom pet names only allow up to 13. Remove this limitation, or let people "reset" their pet names back to their original "Juvenile Subspecies" nomenclature.


Check my other threads!

Alternatively, archetypes could be chosen first, the beast skill dependent on the chosen archetype. Right now, the archetype is only useful for the soulbeast, but we could turn it into another layer of pet customization, making it affect pet attributes as well.

So, choosing a Deadly archetype, which gives a condition damage bonus for soulbeasts, would give said bonus to pets too (no matter the elite specialization), and unlock a condition damage beast skill as well, reinforcing the role of the deadly pet.

You can't customize pet stats now, so this would come pretty handy depending on your build. Base stats would still depend on pet family, the archetype would be a small modifier.

I feel like this would be far more natural than just selecting a random skill from a dropdown list.

@Yasai.3549 said:Anet : Okay, I understand. The players want skins for their pets.

Well, they're just there, ingame. We don't need new models and animations, just take the stuff already in the game.

Still, it's more than just skins, unifying pets into families would make balance easier, since we would be splitting skills from skins, letting developers add new skins and/or skills individually.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:What you suggest: A well-thought-out skinning system that players have wanted for a long time.What the devs will see: Oh, you want 1,200 gem pet skin?

So what? I mean ppl would finally have a skin system and Anet wouldmhave a chance on some profit. Tbh that sounds like a win-win to me. .

My point is , its very unlikely they'll add any more pet skins to the game, even the mobs that already exist. If they did implement the system, they'd only allow you to select from the existing skins along with buying new ones from the gemstore, probably RNG.

This is historically how they've done things, one major example being the build template system.

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@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:What you suggest: A well-thought-out skinning system that players have wanted for a long time.What the devs will see: Oh, you want 1,200 gem pet skin?

So what? I mean ppl would finally have a skin system and Anet wouldmhave a chance on some profit. Tbh that sounds like a win-win to me. .

My point is , its very unlikely they'll add any more pet skins to the game, even the mobs that already exist. If they did implement the system, they'd only allow you to select from the existing skins along with buying new ones from the gemstore, probably RNG.

This is historically how they've done things, one major example being the build template system.I think now that the soulbeast can have only one pet during combat they should be able to pick the archetype. There are a lot of combinations which makes the pets very undesirable (like wolf being a condi archetype or not having a healing archetype in the moa family)
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  • 3 weeks later...

@Hannelore.8153 said:What you suggest: A well-thought-out skinning system that players have wanted for a long time.What the devs will see: Oh, you want 1,200 gem pet skin?

I don't think we'll ever get to see profession-specific stuff in the gem store, but I wouldn't mind if some ranger pet skins had a gold cost.

@anduriell.6280 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:What you suggest: A well-thought-out skinning system that players have wanted for a long time.What the devs will see: Oh, you want 1,200 gem pet skin?

So what? I mean ppl would finally have a skin system and Anet wouldmhave a chance on some profit. Tbh that sounds like a win-win to me. .

My point is , its very unlikely they'll add any more pet skins to the game, even the mobs that already exist. If they did implement the system, they'd only allow you to select from the existing skins along with buying new ones from the gemstore, probably RNG.

This is historically how they've done things, one major example being the build template system.I think now that the soulbeast can have only one pet during combat they should be able to pick the archetype. There are a lot of combinations which makes the pets very undesirable (like wolf being a condi archetype or not having a healing archetype in the moa family)

Yeah, it's kinda pointless. More reasons to implement a system like the one I suggested!

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Pets aren't cosmetics, they are part of a ranger's skill set and as such it is important that pets and their skills can be identified by other players without any issues. With different skins and other customisation options this wouldn't be the case anymore, so that's a no go. Period. What should be done instead is improve balance so there are more viable pets than just a handful. That would also improve "visual" diversity.

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@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:Pets aren't cosmetics, they are part of a ranger's skill set and as such it is important that pets and their skills can be identified by other players without any issues. With different skins and other customisation options this wouldn't be the case anymore, so that's a no go. Period. What should be done instead is improve balance so there are more viable pets than just a handful. That would also improve "visual" diversity.

There is already the option to give players a default character model option, this can easily be applied to pets.

Additionally the skins would probably just be interchangable in between the pet family which is already 75% of the pet.

I can definetaly understand the worries but i wouldn't call that a period no go. It just has a small caveat to it which should be implemented in the options.But customizing your pet would be fantastic for rangers. This is still a RPG afterall.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:Pets aren't cosmetics, they are part of a ranger's skill set and as such it is important that pets and their skills can be identified by other players without any issues. With different skins and other customisation options this wouldn't be the case anymore, so that's a no go. Period. What should be done instead is improve balance so there are more viable pets than just a handful. That would also improve "visual" diversity.

There is already the option to give players a default character model option, this can easily be applied to pets.

Additionally the skins would probably just be interchangable in between the pet family which is already 75% of the pet.

I can definetaly understand the worries but i wouldn't call that a period no go. It just has a small caveat to it which should be implemented in the options.But customizing your pet would be fantastic for rangers. This is still a RPG afterall.

There are some crucial differences between pets within the same family, so just knowing that's a cat or wolf or bird isn't enough. Standard models are not a solution, because they are bad in WvW (make it much harder to identify players). And imagine the mess if other classes also start to demand customizable skills (which would only be fair after all). For the cosmetic and roleplay aspect we have mini pets.

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@UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

@UmbraNoctis.1907 said:Pets aren't cosmetics, they are part of a ranger's skill set and as such it is important that pets and their skills can be identified by other players without any issues. With different skins and other customisation options this wouldn't be the case anymore, so that's a no go. Period. What should be done instead is improve balance so there are more viable pets than just a handful. That would also improve "visual" diversity.

There is already the option to give players a default character model option, this can easily be applied to pets.

Additionally the skins would probably just be interchangable in between the pet family which is already 75% of the pet.

I can definetaly understand the worries but i wouldn't call that a period no go. It just has a small caveat to it which should be implemented in the options.But customizing your pet would be fantastic for rangers. This is still a RPG afterall.

There are some crucial differences between pets within the same family, so just knowing that's a cat or wolf or bird isn't enough. Standard models are not a solution, because they are bad in WvW (make it much harder to identify players). And imagine the mess if other classes also start to demand customizable skills (which would only be fair after all). For the cosmetic and roleplay aspect we have mini pets.

Well while roaming i think standard models should work fine like in PvP. While zerging it doesnt actually matter because its always a visual fustercluck.

So i cant understand that argument.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

@UmbraNoctis.1907 said:Pets aren't cosmetics, they are part of a ranger's skill set and as such it is important that pets and their skills can be identified by other players without any issues. With different skins and other customisation options this wouldn't be the case anymore, so that's a no go. Period. What should be done instead is improve balance so there are more viable pets than just a handful. That would also improve "visual" diversity.

There is already the option to give players a default character model option, this can easily be applied to pets.

Additionally the skins would probably just be interchangable in between the pet family which is already 75% of the pet.

I can definetaly understand the worries but i wouldn't call that a period no go. It just has a small caveat to it which should be implemented in the options.But customizing your pet would be fantastic for rangers. This is still a RPG afterall.

There are some crucial differences between pets within the same family, so just knowing that's a cat or wolf or bird isn't enough. Standard models are not a solution, because they are bad in WvW (make it much harder to identify players). And imagine the mess if other classes also start to demand customizable skills (which would only be fair after all). For the cosmetic and roleplay aspect we have mini pets.

Crucial differences? The only difference among pets of the same family is their visual appearance plus the F2 skill, everything else is the same. In some cases, even the F2 skill is the same as well.

Can't see how that's a problem considering rangers can slot five slot skills freely with no way to tell.

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