Whydid they even put pets in this game?

Pets are terrible for a number of reasons.

Someone brought up Distracting Lunge (5 mana, 5 second rechare) compared to Distracting Shot (5 mana, 15 seconds recharge). They do the same thing, but one is pet based. Is it better? Heavens no! Your pet will not actually perform Distracting Lunge when you command him to, rather, he will attack up to TWICE MORE (4 seconds!) with regular attacks before actually following his order. That's just plain stupid. Nice job with the distracting lunge there pet.

They get stuck..like all the time. If you are foolish enough to rely on your pet's Distracting Lunge for an interrupt, then you're going to be dissapointed when your pet can't figure out the downhill slope that he needs to cross in order to use it.

Also, they refuse to do what you want. If I shoot a single Poison Arrow out of my Longbow at max range, my pet will charge toward my target with reckless abandon, even if all I wanted to do was poison and fall back. He'll stay on that target no matter what I do, refusing to switch. However, if I go in with my Shortbow and Tiger's Fury on a Target, my pet will find something else to do (like get stuck on a tree).

Also, they're far more demanding than any other attribute line, period. I don't need to use 2 skill slots just to have ACCESS to Marksmanship skills. They're not worth it.

Lol, comand /petpoop......
If they only made pets clippable, then I couldn't be happier. There is nothing I hate more than trying to attack somthing while I'm stuck on my pet........

Never had that problem. Whenever I engage a pet attack, that's the next attack that comes. Maybe you're hitting it before the last pet attack skill finished?

So make sure there's a clear path between you and your target before attacking. You know the limitations of the pet AI, so do something about it.

You can't play multiple targets as a beast master; you have to be a babysitter. This is one of the biggest limitations of having a pet. You have to plan your own strategy around the pet's actions, instead of doing what you always do as a ranger and hoping it plays along the way you expect it to.

I agree pets need some improvement to be taken seriously, but it seems like you're not even trying to work with what you've got. The play style with a pet is entirely different; adapt.

My theory is that they put pets in the game so we could identify dumbasses more quickly.

... There are VERY few build using pets. If any.

I'm trying to decide which logic fallacy that statement is. Is it Hasty Generalization, Irrelevant Conclusion, or Non Sequitur?

Why should they be retarded? Say they're trying to attack a person, and another person is in the way, they simply just sit there and stare at the person, how nice is that?

Another something that should of been fixed before it was put in the game, but now it's on a todo list that's about a year long.

I fail to see the point at which using a pet becomes advantageous over using your own skills...

1: Your pet can die, leaving you worthless.
2: Your pet is an NPC. It is stupid as hell. The AI in this game sucks. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be just as useless and dumb as the henchmen. Or worse. Your pet will aggro mobs, fail to retreat when it's about to die, even if you do.
3: Less effective. Build me a good pet build. I haven't seen one. Then I'll stop thinking they suck. Then build me a good pet build that isn't stupid as hell and can't be easily murdered by spells no normal person would be stupid enough to stand in, like Symbol of Wrath.
4: Your healer won't usually heal or protect your pet. "Its just a pet. Who cares". Or rather "A pet? What a dumbass".

I fail to see how you find pets good. At least my "fallacy" is based off something, and until I am proven to the contrary, I'm going to keep thinking that my false point of view is correct.

The truth is, even if you can squeeze better damage out of a pet than you can with your lone ranger, which I am doubtful of, there is no compensation for the bad AI, and anyone who thinks so is clearly misguided. You can give a crappy guild the best build in the world, but if they don't follow orders and use it correctly, it will not help them one bit. The same is true for your pet, which you can garauntee to never fight as a team player.


Think what you will. But I think pets are shit, and they should have been fixed back when A.Net said they would fix them. With the exception of a couple natural rituals you can spam like hell in the Tombs, Beast Mastery is probably the worst skill line in the game.
...Luckily for me, that narrowed down the skills I need to unlock.

Is this not an admission of the very problems everyone is complaining about? Why are you defending pets being dumber than minions. Minions are dead and brainless, but they can reach their targets. Pets, however, get stuck on rocks and can't walk around them.

If my opponents stood around and let me line thing up so that I alwasy had a straight clear shot then I wouldn't carry Pin Down, now would I?

Pets are an interesting line to take. Far, far less controllable than any other skill line and thus far less potent (even though its attacks and cooresponding skills on a theoretical flat plane with ideal circumstances would have pets outdamaging most players).


Developers and programmers are held by deadlines though and unforseen circumstances are expected rather than surprising. I personally think that if the "to-do" list is around a year long, it is far better than the "to-do" list of most games. However, judging by the patches, I must respectfully disagree that it is that long. After all, the updates are, despite what people say, quite dynamic. You can see the topics being posted on forums and a few weeks later a cooresponding update.

I do agree with StandardAI though that pets, although not human, shouldn't be "blessed" with the intelligence of a rock. Despite the logic of "animal vs. human", it is a skill line--and with beastmastery should be considerably more controllable than henchmen, representative of other players.


I, for one, will be encouraged by the promised changes. Although I'm a self-reliant sort (thus dislike relying on a medium of damage outside "myself") pets are very nice visually and immersion-wise.

Maybe because they are supposedly well trained by their masters, who would be giving them commands?

Trying to be good with a bow and a pet is like trying to be good with a bow and a melee weapon. It just doesn't work with the way this game is designed. You have to pick one weapon and stick with it, and pets are weapons.

There is an expression I like a lot:

Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

If you don't see the relevance, that's ok, really. But while this thread could be said to be quite heavy on complaints and pretty light on helpful suggestions, in another forum on this self-same GWG, we have a great and helpful thread going on with constructive and valuable ideas about pets.

Now, please do not go sully that thread with a bunch of complaints about pets that have been said so many times we all know them by heart. Please do join in if you have something worthwhile to add and some good ideas to make or support.

The link is here: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=26800

And if that admirable thread goes downhill, I hope a forum administrator will use his/her superpowers to smite those who take it there.

I always think of my pet as a computer.
Computers are only as smart as the person, using it.

If your healer refuses to heal any member of the team, which includes pets, then something is wrong with the healer.

aNet sais a lot of things.
I wouldn't rely on that.

granted, but there's no way to control them. if I want to control my computer, I use my keyboard and mouse, and use program's interfaces to communicate with my computer, because I simply don't know binary, nor do I know how to code every format every program on my computer is written. there is no way to "communicate" with your pet. He runs off on a rampage and attacks the first thing you fire an arrow at. If you were trying to pull a group, your pet will die when you do this, because he just ran into a group your entire party was trying to avoid. if you switch targets, your pet stupidly attacks the first one rather than the one your entire team is fighting, making them even less effective.


To Arena.Net, specifically whoever reads these forums:
We gave you tons of useful ideas in the past regarding compensation for pet stupidity that you never acted upon. Most people desired nothing but a way to say "retreat", "attack my target", etc. But none of these things are in the game, even after you know the complaints by heart, and you are handed given good suggestions that you overlooked. Henchmen are still uncontrollable, pets are still worthless. It's not enough to say we're listening. You need to act. And if you're in the process of acting, you should tell us so we don't start thinking you don't care. I have been losing faith in Arena.Net's concern for major issues ever since release, and nothing seems to be looking up.

It's really hard to read comments about "not caring" -- and I see so many of those sorts from certain forum members -- and not wonder if they are just not catching what we are doing, every update. It may not be that the update we've just rolled out is your cup o' tea. Maybe you want blue and we do red. But the fact that we're doing so many changes, and so quickly, and so well, is certainly something that it would be nice to note.

We're working on a major free live update, coming in a few weeks. We are also working on Chapter 2. Oh, and of course we're doing those pretty-darn-significant changes in the updates that we roll out every few weeks, too.

Don't lose the faith. Don't think that because we don't address this issue or that issue that we're addressing no issues at all! Pet controls are something that many people want. They are something that I, personally, want very much. But even as someone who will directly benefit from their implementation, I have to consider the Big Picture, and realize that my time/our time will come in the grand scheme of things. I'm impatient, too, but I'm utterly confident that this issue will be addressed.

I will try to get a timeline and if I learn something, I'll share it here. In the meantime, although you are tired of my saying it, I'm obliged to say yet again, we are listening, we do appreciate the input, and we will continue to make positive and significant changes in the future.

Oh, well don't say it because you feel OBLIGED to, say it because you love us with all yer heart.

I think everyone needs to think like PieXags ---"Update, I wonder what it did." *glances over update* "Text, wicked."

*play guild wars*

Then everyone would be happy.

I don't want my wild wolf to go to obedience school!

Yes. You can work with what you've got (the problems with pet AI are already very well-documented on these forums, see the thread Gaile linked to) or complain about it some more. I'm not defending pet AI, I know they're dumb when it comes to navigating obstacles. I also know how to get around it. All you need is a straight shot for one moment, and you can keep the pet on-target for the rest of the fight.

Hm, yes and no.
You have to move backwards ('S') a few meters/yards to keep your pet from rushing to the enemy you're trying to pull, but it works.

Usually it notices that you're walking backwards and follows you.

True.
On the other hand, that's exactly the behavior you can observe when teaming with real humans.

No matter how often you explain to them to follow targets. They just keep hacking at their chosen enemy until it, or they are dead.

Maybe we should update the human AI too.

Share your knowledge about the upcoming update with us.

That way we'll have a something to look forward to, and maybe it already covers a lot of issues/comlpaints that have been discussed on this forum.

You'd be amazed how fast some threads about guild-capes (e.g.) or threads about minimap abuse would cease to exist.

If Internet users were patient we would still be on 56k and my ISP would be out of business.

Hah, I'm famous, or is that imfamous?

This is kinda contradictory as I believe the official business plan is to make small changes slowly as to not screw anything up. Hmm wait, I think I just uncovered the problem.

Thats great, but new content isn't to important if the current stuff isn't working properly. Of course, if both fixes and new content is delivered thats fine too.

Agree, Tuna. See Update Notes -- I think we're delivering.