There’s a very serve difference between pets and thralls end game. Are there any plans to change the scaling of animals to put them more in line with T3/4 Thralls, or maybe add a sorcery/religion item(I’m thinking Jhebbal Sag should have it) to give permanent/temporary buffs, or crafting enhanced versions of them like the DLC skins but with stat buffs?
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“Plans” for rebalance, yes.
When is the question. We’ve been waiting for it for a good while already.
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I figured it was something to that effect. I played for a good while a year or two ago on PS4/5, recently started back up on PC, I personally LOVE pet systems and taming/training them… It’s extremely disheartening to go through all that work when I can just knock a himbo out and throw T4 gear on him and he’s better at level 1 than something I put 15 hours into caring for.
I hope they stop with the balances, because every time they do it, it gets worse.
That sounds like…the opposite of balancing
Relevant to this discussion is around 33:22 onwards.
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But the question is what, precisely, that balance will be?
Pets were never (and i venture to say will never as far as reading @den during every answer he has given) be equivalent to a good thrall in epic armor and gear. However I think there is room to grow as far as balancing goes. So because of design will not make a 1 v 1 equivalent, I would suggest that you get the ability to have multiples and using the “tiers” they have already established (training difficulty)
T1: Quick leveling. These are your ostriches, hyenas etc. I would say that you get 4 following of these to pack together or miss match and the 4 (or 5 if war party) would get your that equivalent to a beskerker in the best gear.
T2: Mid leveling. These are your wolves and such that are in the middle. You get 3.
t3: slow leveling. Your sabres etc that you get 2.
t4-5 (see below breeding options) would get you that 1 animal following.
Now I would also remove the concept of greater as a food based growth. All cubs and babies obtained are all regular. HOWEVER a new mechanic called breeding gets introduced where you can breed your pets to determine if a better pet is made. You can generate a punnett square probability matrix where all of the ones you collect are heterozygous (if you want just a dom/recess single gene) and therefore offspring have a 25% chance of breeding into a “greater”. You may say that sounds like RNG and it is but when you get a greater gene, you can breed that with others to get more and more greaters out of the mix and eventually you could have your own economy of selling greater animals because you did the breeding for others.
Now the reason I put greater in quotes is that I would like to see multiple levels of these things as well. A T1 hyena could be bred to get a T2 hyena which could be bred to get a t3 hyena and equivalent to a sabre at that point. I would stop after 2 addition levels and therefore you would have two hidden tiers (4 and 5) that can only be accessed by breeding better animals. Any of these hetereozyg. animals should have hints in them (coat pattern/color/animal size etc) that denotes that they are not you common animal but have the gene seed for something greater.
I would also have an age mechanic in that these things will grow old and stop mating and eventually die (I would love to see this in human thralls as well but I read the room and most of you would mutiny the game if they did that)
So pets become a breeder subgame. Have value in that effort and produce another economy based on it. You can also have farm domestication at that point are breed superior cuts of pork, venison, or poultry.
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I could definitely get behind an idea like that, though I think it would take too much time for them to implement. I’d settle for “greater” variants being scaled up so that it’s not just a brain dead choice between take thrall or take pet for combat at this point
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100% this. It is one of my pet (no pun intended) peeves with Conan Exiles. If anything the disparity has only worsened over the currents of time. Certain pets such as bears, big cats, canines, etc, and especially Greater pets should be at the very minimun on par with T4 thralls. We were given the infamous cats and canines nerf some 1.5 years ago now along with assurances that this would be part of a larger overarching rebalance of followers. But we are still here waiting. The current state of pets is unsatisfactory, most are on par with a moisture logged paper bag for strength and surviveability.
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Pets have been reduced to decorative status.
That was intentional.
The person in charge decided that only Cimmerian Berzerkers should be useful followers and has spent extensive effort ensuring that everything else is inferior. Want one of the best archers in the game? Get a Berzerker.
Want one of the the best warriors? Get a Berzerker.
Want a thrall to carry stuff and survive? Get a Berzerker.
That last bit they have back pedalled temporarily on with promises to come back and nerf bearers into the ground again later.
There were claims that there would later be further adjustments for pets.
Those claims are stale and inquiries regarding progress on that front are met with crickets.
Thus this one doubts that it will come to pass.
This one doesn’t even believe there ever was an intention to revisit them after the massive nerf in the first place. The statement that with the nerf they could then further adjust them is true. But just because they could do something doesn’t imply that they will.
Because after all, getting pets is “easier” than making thralls so they “shouldn’t be as strong”. As tho the feat for pets isn’t gated behind the feat for thralls and getting an advanced pet isn’t an entire RNGesus prayer-a-poloza.
This one rates this decision on par with the decision that we didn’t need to precision split our inventory stacks.
/Rant
For the time being, it is important to understand that pets are basically a dead slot in your follower limit. The house cat and rat have about as much utility as tigers. Even the new werebear is… impressive in appearance only. There has been no stable indication that this will ever change.
If it ever does, pleasant surprise.
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Mechanically there are no differences in the core game between a thrall and a “animal” in terms of fighting. They are even as stupid as the dumbest animals one might add.
In a “better World” the idea would be that animals were stronger, but more stupid, and humanoid thralls would be weaker but smarter.
As it is, the idea is simplified by just making what works “last longer” in humanoids to symbolize they are better.
In that alternative “better World” while animals would have raw strength or vitality, humanoid thralls would understand strategy and be better at tactics and team work, even handling the animals themselves.
As it is, it is the same deal as the “difficulty” in terms of combat:
There are no harder enemies, just enemies with higher damage and bigger health pools.
That is not difficult per se, because hitting hard and having bigger health pools wont do any good if the AI of the opponent is better …
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Pets? What pets?
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Took me five attempts to successfully get my pet rat to level 20. Bosses would notice I was using a rat and stomp it to death
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In a “better World” the idea would be that animals were stronger, but more stupid, and humanoid thralls would be weaker but smarter.
I would love for this to be the case. If they made a better combat AI I would 100% vote for this path. The animals should be beasts of burden, siege weapons and defenses. Give human thralls the smarts to dodge roll, circle/flank the enemy, not drop combos, and switch weapons more effectively and you could easily buff the animals to compensate. Hell, they should be buffed now to compensate but I guess the devs don’t care much about the pet lovers it seems.
The biggest issue behind pets getting any buffs in comparison to thralls is risk versus reward has to be adjusted too. Its not incredibly hard nor time consuming for a player to obtain a fully kitted out best pet in the game as soon as they have access to the taming pen. And that requires zero fighting. Just go to the spot with babies and with your nose to the ground, spam the pick up key/button.
This fact is something they are well aware of and the main reason why these pets receive adjustments in the opposite direction.
I’ve said in the past that this method of obtaining pets needs an overhaul. I’d also like to see pets get a bit of an overhaul as well based on some things we already have.
Right now pets have two tiers. I think this should be increased to three.
First tier would be equal or a little better than T1 thralls. These would be obtained how we do so now. You walk up to a baby and pick it up. When you put it in the taming pen, it never has a chance to upgrade there.
Second tier would be an improved trained version. These would be found in thrall camps and would need to be liberated from cages like some thralls are now. These would be equivalent in power to tier 2 and 3 thralls (something in between). Kinda like how greaters are now. Maybe a bit better.
Finally greater pets are found in the wild in some of the hardest areas. But not simply on the ground to pick up and run. You need to fight bosses and such to have a chance at looting these. You get a greater pet baby that you need shadespiced food to raise. It always turns out to be a greater version. The difference is it works like named dogs in that you get a named pet of that type with its own unique perks. These would be somewhat behind T4 named thralls in power… well behind one in full epic armor and legendary weapons. Maybe equivalent to one in non-epic armor and hardened steel weapons.
I get that it’s easier, to an extent. But bashing a thrall over the head isn’t exactly rocket science either though and at least with them you have set stat growths. Pets have to be rerolled if they have garbage growth chances. On top of the fact that you can’t just know which baby you picking up will end up as a greater. I’ve thrown 30 hatchlings in with shadespiced best chances and still gotten squat. You know exactly what you’re getting when you tie a rope around your new himbo. I don’t see why they couldn’t add a sorcery or weapon/armor set to improve pets. Spell that buffs them, an item from Jhebbal Sag’s religion that can be fused with the “item” in your inventory before dropping it like the pet skins that buffs their stats, a second training building where you can put a beastmaster thrall to increase stats, a whip, armor made out of that same animal, etc.
I would love to be able to crack a hyena over the head at a camp, or lure it with food etc, and drag it home for rehabilitation. That’s a dope idea they should definitely consider. But they have plenty of ways/options of making them more viable.
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been waiting for 4 years or something for it, and all the balance patches in those years have been terrible, i’ve been working on an overhaul mod myself and whats most shocking is how absurdly easy it is to actually change the values in the game.
it really tells you that theres just a lack of caring over at funcom, or maybe a lack of understand the game.
it really tells you that theres just a lack of caring over at funcom
It’s really a shame how much of the playerbase feels this way. Honestly, I can’t see them NOT caring about the game… but they definitely seem to be hitting the mark on showing it.
that’s mostly because there is a lack of transparency of the plan and, ironically, a healthy distrust of when they do have that level of transparency because of the lack of fulfillment or at least in a timely way.
If they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t, it is because they have spent half a decade cultivating that no win situation for themselves.
Where do you go to get your shadebloom (admittedly easier now than it used to be) and exotic flesh?
Or are you relying on RNGesus to simply bless you with a greater tiger on the first go?
And in what cosmos is making a Cimmerian Berzerker, with it’s guaranteed spawn, a thrall challenging?
They are isolated and in clear terrain. Not even in the horrifically hot volcano or freezing cold ice fields.
If you get lucky with looting purple lotus bombs from chests, they can also be brought down with zero fighting
But even if you must fight them, it’s not like a lone NPC is ever a threat unless there is lag or some other hiccup. The same sort of jank that would let the mama tiger pounce you and put some claws in you for grabbing the cub.
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