QoL Suggestion

[Sebrent.3625]

Two pieces to this suggestion:

(1) Give full control of Ranger pet skills to all Ranger specs the way that currently only Untamed has. This not only gives players more control over their pets' skills, it also gets rid of the scenario where the hotkeys for pet attack/return change depending on which Ranger spec you're playing.

(2) Allow players to set Ranger each individual pet skill to autocast or not. If set to autocast, the pet will use it on their own like they currently do for non-Untamed specs. If set to not autocast, then it's the same way they work right now for Untamed. This gives players options over how much they want to micromanage their pet across all specs. This gives more pet control to all specs while making the Untamed more playable for people who feel overwhelmed by the extra pet micromanagement. It also reduces the needless spamming of some pet skills that have super low cooldowns and are simply extra damage.

 

Thoughts?

Edited June 27, 2022 by Sebrent.3625

[Donut.6914]

apparently they are working on your second suggestion right now. expect it to be done sometime around 2025

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

They won't ever end up doing this, as untamed needs something to draw in players mechanically. Unleashing doesn't as it is underwhelming in most scenarios, and the pet management is the only other option.

 

I'd love to have control over my wyvern's wing buffet so I can have it hit the boss and CC only when I need to as druid, or actually be able to run a core power setup with Moas so they would actually use their swipe attack (which hits pretty hard) when it's needed on core. But it just won't happen.

[Sebrent.3625]

@Donut.6914& @RainbowTurtle.3542 maybe you both have crystal balls and know for sure that something will/won't happen soon/ever ... but I don't think that's helpful whatsoever to discussion.

The point is "do you think this would be a worthwhile change to have?" or "would you enjoy this change?"

[Donut.6914]

2 minutes ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

@Donut.6914& @RainbowTurtle.3542 maybe you both have crystal balls and know for sure that something will/won't happen soon/ever ... but I don't think that's helpful whatsoever to discussion.

The point is "do you think this would be a worthwhile change to have?" or "would you enjoy this change?"

i was referencing this 

 

but yeah i would be all for more control on every spec if you could choose to opt out of it via autocasting 

[Sebrent.3625]

@Donut.6914Oh, nice! It doesn't look like we'll have to wait that long for this given the statements in what you shared: 

Quote

This is mostly complete on our internal development environment, but is not yet ready, as there's some more polish and testing to go. So- it's not going live next week. But it won't have to wait for the next major skills update either. We'll be able to release it when it's ready.

It looks like the Untamed-specific mechanic changes/improvements are what are later out in their schedule. Thanks for sharing this.

[Beddo.1907]

The first suggestion probably won't happen unless Anet gives up on pet AI and just gives us full control of skills.
Other Untamed mechanics are boring and barely count as Elite mechanics, so I'd pass on making Untamed even more bland.

[Sebrent.3625]

@Beddo.1907It's not about trying to make Untamed more bland. It's about improving the overall Ranger pet mechanic (and it looks like pet mechanic in general as that Reddit post mentioned Mechanist as well).

If you improve that core mechanic, that then frees up Untamed to provide more some other way(s) to become "less bland".

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 hour ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

@Donut.6914& @RainbowTurtle.3542 maybe you both have crystal balls and know for sure that something will/won't happen soon/ever ... but I don't think that's helpful whatsoever to discussion.

The point is "do you think this would be a worthwhile change to have?" or "would you enjoy this change?"

To answer your question, yes and yes. It would be worthwhile and I would enjoy having it.

 

However, is it realistic to expect these changes to core? No, not at all. Untamed is struggling as is, they're not going to give something it has to core.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

I like your enthusiasm OP...but when mentioning 'crystal balls' just be sure to remember that someone had to link a reddit post on the official GW2 forums just to prove their point.  

That should be all you need to know about ideas for anything, but especially ranger.  You can also go read on reddit how ranger pet AI is a 'black box' they won't open; so the only reason for these changes is because of mechanist.  

They haven't had a dedicated ranger dev for a very long time--and now devs are even more broken into what classes they play / like, so we're definitley not seeing huge (or any) ranger-specific changes for the foreseeable future.

[Sebrent.3625]

@RainbowTurtle.3542 ./shrug ... they might. In that post that was shared from reddit, they mentioned doing the same for Mechanist, so we'll simply have to wait and see ... though Mechanist does have multiple F-key skills

@Gotejjeken.1267I will always ask what someone is basing something off of. There are lots of claims all over the forums often not backed up with anything. I prefer to ask for the substance behind stuff :-)

As far as optimism ... if you talk to me about my thoughts on the current balance patch you might not say the same ... I have no clue what direction they were trying for there ... hoping they fix that as we just lost a guy from our static because it annoyed him so much he's taking a break from the game :-/

But back on topic ... I'd rather try to drive clear, healthy discussions so that perhaps the devs will see them and use them instead of things like "More Proof ANet Hates Mesmers" and "Ranger is Depression" which, to be nicely, have a very poor signal-to-noise ratio ;-)

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

55 minutes ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

@RainbowTurtle.3542 ./shrug ... they might. In that post that was shared from reddit, they mentioned doing the same for Mechanist, so we'll simply have to wait and see ... though Mechanist does have multiple F-key skills

@Gotejjeken.1267I will always ask what someone is basing something off of. There are lots of claims all over the forums often not backed up with anything. I prefer to ask for the substance behind stuff 🙂

As far as optimism ... if you talk to me about my thoughts on the current balance patch you might not say the same ... I have no clue what direction they were trying for there ... hoping they fix that as we just lost a guy from our static because it annoyed him so much he's taking a break from the game 😕

But back on topic ... I'd rather try to drive clear, healthy discussions so that perhaps the devs will see them and use them instead of things like "More Proof ANet Hates Mesmers" and "Ranger is Depression" which, to be nicely, have a very poor signal-to-noise ratio 😉

They havent been listening to player feedback very much, at least according to the document that shall not be named. Either way it wont make a difference, and your optimism is just being naive at this point.

[Sebrent.3625]

To each their own. I'd rather try something hoping things change than throw my hands up and give up.

Apparently they are already working on this idea, so that's something to look forward to.

 

With respect to whether or not the devs listen to players on the forums, I think one of the issues is that so many posts on the forums are dramatic, exaggerated, etc. brain dumps with horrible grammar. The more that is true, the less motivation anyone has to use them, including devs. Several players have often mentioned that they don't use the forums for this very reason.

 

If we improve the quality of posts or at least have higher quality discussions bubble to the top and not get derailed, I imagine we'll see an improvement.