The Pet system in this game is bloody atrocious

[♠.brT]

A glorified escort mission, with every flaw that every escort mission ever designed in games has plus a lot more that are beyond any control of the player, who the hell thought this was going to be fun an engaging for the player? I'm genuinely awestruck by just how stupid this system is, it's quite amazing that it managed to make into a finished product.

I seriously can not find one good thing about this system, it feels like they intended the system to frustrate the player rather than add something fun or interesting to the gameplay. The pets don't even do anything during combat, yet you still need to protect them. One needs to be a special kind of genius in order to design something this stupid into a game, it managed to be worse than the argument mechanic they designed in the previous game, i'm seriously impressed, i didn't think it was possible someone could design something this bad, but here we are!

/rant

Great game though.

[[N63] chrisragnar]

They arnt really pets. If they survive past a point in the game you get a reward. Assuming you mean the black cat, its more of a challange. Not a pet. Should be easy tho, dont think it ever died for me. the squirl thing you can just dismiss, and it will appear in your hubs, its a quest i think, havent done it.

[♠.brT]

Yeah i know they aren't really pets, as i said in my comment, its a glorified escort mission, one of those things people complain about it in every freaking videogame that includes it, yet for some god forsaken reason the devs decided to take a shot designing two quest like those themselves and surprising absolutely nobody they failed miserably.

Also there is no freaking challenge here, you don't get to plan how you going to keep the damn thing alive, you basically have to hope that at the start of an engagement the damn thing will run away fast enough before the enemy starts throwing bombs at you. I'd be more okay with this quests if you at least had some basic control over them, like telling them who to follow, or making sure they would remain a safer distance away from you rather than hugging your feet the entire time.

Even Sir lora with its high health and shield is vulnerable and can instantly die to traps triggered by your braindead AI, and it gets even more stupid with Sir Lora, because he will keep trying to get away from the battle but as soon as he goes a certain distance away from you he'll teleport back to you, which can result in the hilarious situation where he'll teleport in the middle of freaking fire pit, run away, teleport again to the firepit, run away, and rince and repeat until HE DIES. I'm serious I literally watch him do it. It's absolutely comical how badly designed this was to the point where I honestly question the sanity of the poor soul that did it.

[Chaoslink]

Literally was only a method to try and teach players about crafted skills. Most players didn't know you could craft them.

[Hollywood]

You're overthinking it. The only "escort" mission with these "pets" is the cat, which only serves to teach you a skill and is done after the tutorial (I consider Fort Joy starter zone to be a tutorial). The squirrel can die at any time and he'll still stick around as long as you pop spirit vision, doesn't change anything really, he still thinks he's alive.

[danbjp]

I don't really understand the cat quest and there are multiple tip websites saying to save the cat; he's pretty useless, without spoilers, I can't tell you why, so there's not much point in obsessively trying to keep him alive.
Sir Lora was annoying me so I killed him and now he's still around after spirit vision LOL

[Terotrous]

I like the cat. You don't have to keep it around too long and you get a decent skill out of it. Sir Lora is just stupid though.

[Flambeau200061]

The cat isn't really that annoying. But I fired Sir Lora the squirrel after he repeatedly stomped over the mosaic puzzle in Mordus' basement ... bothersome creature.

[♠.brT]

I'm going to revive this thread because i just had to, i literally ran into the issue i described earlier again with Sir Lora, where he kept teleporting away and coming back to the fire until he died.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crIMDUh_W3I&feature=youtu.be

I had to record it, because it was amazing, and the other really cool thing, that fire started because of Sir Lora, he somehow caught fire and ran across an oil puddle, thus the necrofire everywhere. Truly an amazingly well developed mechanic, that was worth the dev money they spent on it /s

[Sotj]

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

I'm going to revive this thread because i just had to, i literally ran into the issue i described earlier again with Sir Lora, where he kept teleporting away and coming back to the fire until he died.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crIMDUh_W3I&feature=youtu.be

I had to record it, because it was amazing, and the other really cool thing, that fire started because of Sir Lora, he somehow caught fire and ran across an oil puddle, thus the necrofire everywhere. Truly an amazingly well developed mechanic, that was worth the dev money they spent on it /s

I think the fire is bound to start there anyway with or without him. Mobs will cast some firespells.

[♠.brT]

Yes i know it was bound to happen anyway, its a pretty difficult fight due to the combination and sequence of mob spawns, I didn't wanted the fire to start that quickly, was trying to control it as much as i could to limit its potential damage to both me.. as well as Sir Lora, this was my second attempt at that battle, which needless to say resulted in a reload due to Sir Lora committing suicide (i really like Sir Lora's voice actor and his dialog so i don't wanna lose him).

I find it absolutely amazing that Larian Studios actually designed it this way, i mean, seriously watching Sir lora suicide into the necro fire was quite interesting because i try to imagine in my head the problems that the developer was trying to solve when when he coded the AI behaviour, its pretty clear that Sir Lora is trying to look for a safe place to hide, but due to a place like that not really existing at that moment the AI just freaks out and keeps repeating the exact same movement set over and over again until it dies, it would be hilarious if it wasn't infuriating.

[Chaoslink]

Eh, if you look at the black cat from the beginning, it has the exact same AI. The only difference is that is stop following after a certain distance and doesn't teleport back. Because the cat only lasted a short time and there weren't too make places he could get stuck inside the fort joy area, that AI worked well for him. Sir Lora has to follow much much longer and through much more complicated areas, so teleporting him to you once he got too far away was their solution, but given how wide the dangers he runs away from can be, it causes those loops.

Honestly, the biggest dilemma is that they want him to be able to die, you're his shield afterall, but because combat is turn based and Sir Lora doesn't "stop time" when you enter it, this is a possibility. The best way to fix it is also the one thing that would take away the aspect of protecting him, making him invulnerable.

[♠.brT]

I really dislike this argument that you are supposed to protect him, yeah i get it, its part of his story, you are his shield, fine.. but then why don't the developers give us legitimate mechanics to try and keep him alive? there is no way to control him, so you are at the mercy of its AI, and if there is one thing that this game lacks, is good AI, i don't know if its the difficulty that i'm playing on (classic) but the AI in this game is god awful, at least your friendly AI, the enemy AI is decent, but your friendly AI is balls to the wall stupid, honourable mention of course goes to the sourcerer that you are supposed to protect in that fight, seriously i had more difficulty trying to keep that sourcerer alive than actually fighting the horde of really competent enemy AI that the game threw at me.

But i'll give this to the game, at least protecting the sourcerer was a real challenge, one that i was proud of accomplishing afterwards because it took some pretty decent strategy to do so considering the stupid moves the AI was doing that only caused him more damage, but keeping Sir Lora alive, there is no challenge there, only hope and frustration, and i don't find that engaging or fun and i don't see why anyone should.

[Chaoslink]

Oh yeah, I totally agree. I’d much rather see him invulnerable in regular fights and have unique situations where he is specifically involved like when you escort Saheila from the lumber mill.

In any recent game, I’ve ignored him. If he dies he dies. It just isn’t worth bothering with as some fights are borderline impossible to protect him from. Like the fight in the elf tree in the graveyard. On tactician, that elf has a poison aura that Sir Lora is affected by. The range is huge so unless you’re a ranged character on the far side of the room, he is going to be affected. So it’s a race against the clock to kill that elf to turn off the aura. They give you the option to leave him on the ship, but if that is all you’re going to do, then what is the point in having him right?

It makes it feel like a half finished idea, and not the only example of half finished content the game has to offer. Crafting feels like there should have been more to it as well, I was actually surprised that the DE didn’t bring massive changes to that.

[♠.brT]

Oh so i wasn't aware that you could actually tell him to leave and then you can get him back on the ship, i thought if you told him to leave he would be gone for good, although i would prefer to be able to keep him with me for everything, since i enjoy his dialogue lines that he throws every once in a while especially when he gets hit by something i do, this can at least help me get through some of the most annoying parts of the game without him interfering and or dying.

[Aku]

I got rid of all the pets following me around in chapter 2, they were just an annoying distraction.