Pets in mecha

[Omnires]

I like games where the pets on them actually help you in some real way be it they fight by your side, or pick up drops, or acting as extra storage. In some games pets are viewed more like another character on your account than anything else.

Now given that is the future with robots sure we can have cool robots and mecha as pets. But what is I want a real flesh and blood animal as my pet? I can't realistically put them in danger like that against monsters and mechanics just hope they survive. No, a good pet own would do everything they can to keep their friend safe. Well if I need a mecha to help me fight and survive, why can I do the same for my pet? Why can't a dog, cat, or bird be outfitted in a special four-legged or winged version of the Omniframe? Why can't I give my pets weapons and/or shields to help them better fight along side me or try to protect me? The answer is nothing. Nothing is realistically stopping that from happening.

Just picture it. You are in a large battle with a group of enemies fighting them off. When out of nowhere enemy jump out from behind a tree in a flanking move. You don't have enough time turn and counter it, plus you are busy fighting the others who are in front of you just waiting for an opening to kill you. But you pet who by your side notices the enemy before you did and jumped between it and you while putting up a powerful but short lives deflector shield to push the enemy away from you. And when the shield drops it fires as the enemy using a chaingun you mounted on the frame you give it.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

I'm against it, fear of making it easier for soloing. If such pet will be introduced in future, then it should be optional, as i don't want a pet. Unless it a cute holo-drone that floats pointlessly around me without any ability. Perhaps with some scanning boost ability or a shield dome when near death.

 

[Terib.Shadow]

N.O, pet that actually help you are not a good idea. The big guy stated why and there's still more reasons. It's much better to have pets that just follow you around and do nothing, or imitate you like the chosen hologram in firefall. But i'm not against the pets having some kind of storage with them or stuff like that. Being able to customise the pet would also be a good thing.

 

[Squid Boss]

Nah.
Just invite your friends along.

 

[Omnires]

Well the pets don't have to be combat pets. I just don't want them to be useless pets. For example, in some games pets can help you find gather things or help you find hidden things on the map. Be those things are picking up ammo, pointing out resources, pointing out traps (landmines and such), digging up buried treasure, or pointing out hidden paths (like clawing at a weak spot in a cave wall that leads to a hidden area). The role of pets like these are to help ease the workload the player by doing simple tasks for them.

People have been using animals in warfare for thousands of years even without those animals being use to attack the enemies directly. For example, training birds to fly around and follow people by circling overhead so you can use the bird to track enemy movements.

 

[Vladplaya]

How about they at least make a playable pre alpha of a zone with a functional resource gathering, before we start suggesting pets? lol

As for brainstorming part of this, I only support cosmetic pets in safe zones. Random animals and weird other weird stuff tagging alone in a combat zone, not only adds to clutter, but also destroys immersion imo.
If they want pets to have abilities our help in any way, than they need to be available to everyone and be core of the game from the start, with proper balance and implementation.
That's just my 2c, I am sure we are going to see bunch of weird stuff sold for money as soon as they will have enough resources for the cash shop, since that is something very popular in mmo games and people expect this.

 

[Wyntyr]

I'm all for pets. Preferably for pets that can be customized to some extent (colors, outfits, etc).

IF there were "helpful" pets for gameplay, which I'm not against, I would prefer that pet to take up an equipment/gear slot. You want a pet to help ya...no prob...but it takes up a utility slot.

 

[TankHunter678]

Only realistic way I could see living pets is if we were going with a "frame" that was not the big bulky omniframe.

Or if the omniframe was enclosed so we could have a spot for something like a kitten or puppy to hang out on our dash. Like in Mechwarrior Online where you can stick bobbleheads, drinks, etc, at the dash. That we can see while in First person.

 

[NanoTechnician]

Depends on the type of pet, something I've experienced is in Anarchy Online engineers, very helpful and really takes a long time to complete combat tho, so it's balanced.

Spoiler: click for ancient gaming video

 

[Omnires]

Depends on the type of pet, something I've experienced is in Anarchy Online engineers, very helpful and really takes a long time to complete combat tho, so it's balanced.

Spoiler: click for ancient gaming video

If I remember right didn't high level engineers in that game also have the ability build a large white color robot they can get inside of like a mecha suit? It been 10 years seen I last played that game and my main was like a level 150+ adventurer with ability to turn into transform into a dragon and spit out an AOE fire ball.

But I did have a low level engineer in that game. I made lots of scripts and macros for it. I remember some people believed another player controlling it because I would program it to sing, tell jokes, and have arguments with myself and other players. It funny tricking people into thinking my robot pet had a mind of its own and that it kind of hated humans.

 

[NanoTechnician]

If I remember right didn't high level engineers in that game also have the ability build a large white color robot they can get inside of like a mecha suit? It been 10 years seen I last played that game and my main was like a level 150+ adventurer with ability to turn into transform into a dragon and spit out an AOE fire ball.

But I did have a low level engineer in that game. I made lots of scripts and macros for it. I remember some people believed another player controlling it because I would program it to sing, tell jokes, and have arguments with myself and other players. It funny tricking people into thinking my robot pet had a mind of its own and that it kind of hated humans.

Yeah, the ability to create those scripts (more like macros) where incidental (essentially an exploit turned into a feature), I call that gaming science as it's an unexpected consequence of something that wasn't intended to be made that way. It later became a bot for guild chat which became it's own thing like the HugBot, Angelsbot Vashbot.

The mechs whern't they those Personalised Mechanized Vehicles.

I stopped when those came in as I didn't like them, felt like the game was giving in to those who didn't want to grind money to get a 14million Yalm.

I think having a pet Ravening M-60 was cool as it wasn't a humanoid robot but a robo dog

 

[Omnires]

Yeah, the ability to create those scripts (more like macros) where incidental (essentially an exploit turned into a feature), I call that gaming science as it's an unexpected consequence of something that wasn't intended to be made that way. It later became a bot for guild chat which became it's own thing like the HugBot, Angelsbot Vashbot.

The mechs whern't they those Personalised Mechanized Vehicles.

I stopped when those came in as I didn't like them, felt like the game was giving in to those who didn't want to grind money to get a 14million Yalm.

I think having a pet Ravening M-60 was cool as it wasn't a humanoid robot but a robo dog

It was the large melee focused robot that only high level engineers make and use to tank things. Just in case range combat didn't work or they were about to die and need more armor.

 

[EvilKitten]

I feel my name is apt for this poll...

 

[0V3RKILL]

yeah if pets help you I want it if they just stand there like they did in firefall then no. it's useless. That mech can be a pet like in titanfall. you get out of it to revive someone and the mech still fights for you. Not asking for that. But, doesn't sound that bad.

 

[DARKB1KE]

No.

 

[Pandagnome]

No.

loved this pet it was utterly useless but it was the only one with jetpack

 

[Pandagnome]

What about pets that are involved in thumping resources but on a smaller scale?

 

[Terib.Shadow]

What about pets that are involved in thumping resources but on a smaller scale?

Well I could see a monkey engineer repairing the THMPR at a rate of 5% per minute, not too op but still helps and only for mining. The monkey could also just run around on your armor without any protection and a cibernetic eye. I'd be okay with it.

 

[Daynen]

I could see pets being a thing, if only because they've been a thing since the dawn of RPG's anyway. We already had the engineer class in FF; every turret or deployable could be considered a "pet" by some definition. If we're getting rid of turrets too, then I'm all for it, but if we get any kind of automated deployable, then pets should be a thing. Seems only fair to me.

 

[Necryel]

Pets are a complex system and we need to determine three things before anything else can be answered: Will pets have a combat role? If yes, will combat pets be available to everyone or just to a specific "class"?

Then comes the issue of non-combat or "vanity" pets. Should vanity pets has abilities or not?
I'm going to focus on vanity pets. I think for aesthetics the so-caled armored or robo pets are cool and as are the idea of replica pets (robotic/holo pets designed to look exactly like presumedly extinct/ and/or highly exotic and dangerous creatures) Both are quite lore friendly given advanced future science settings.

Now, with regards to vanity pets having abiltiies: I am thoroughly opposed to vanity pets provided any type of statistical bonus, or having any combat related/oriented powers, as this makes certain pets into "must-haves" and is tantamount to selling power (something which I despise on F2P models). Any abilties any pet might have needs to be either equally superfluous as the pet itself, provide convenience, or have bare minimal gameplay utility. Here are some acceptable abilities, bare in mind that I'll be drawing upon some FF based examples only because we currently don't have anything else with which to provide comparison with or context.

Acceptable Pet abilities:
Pet can launch fireworks with a cool down
Pet can double as a glider (subject to global cool down)
Pet can double as LGV
Pet can double as a Jump Pad
Pet can collect Crystite within 10m (acceptable only because Crystite was split among all in squad and because 10m is a short distance)
Pet can grant instantaneous Out Of Combat once per Day (either full Day-night game cycle/ till server reset/ or 24hr cool down, acceptable since out of combat regen is fairly quick to begin with.)
Pet can glow as bright as a flare in dark environments.
Pet can play music based on local environment or owner can choose from/program a playlist of the OST.
Pet can create a ball either to play fetch or to toss among other players for fun (subject to minimal cool down)
Pet can scan 50m radius and ping all boxes/crate to local SIN (1hr cool down)
Pet can pop surface node as per sonic Detonators with 10sec cool down.
Pet can launch targets for players (up to a full squad with owner) to shoot in a skeet shooting minigame. (requires being outdoors/above ground with minimal obstructions from 100m, covering a 110 degree arc.)
Pet can report random player statistics of owner in local chat. (Both for current session and career)

Again, the focus should be on superfluous abiltiies, abilities which provide a convenience, or those which provide minimal gameplay utility.