Giving corpses to invincible pets

Florentino

This strikes me as an unintended perk of the invincibility features of pets. They already can't be killed, I don't think it's fine for them to also be invincible repositories of all the essence you can grab in group conflict. Dropping corpses upon death is a balancing factor, but this is taken away as a result of this unintended component and there's nothing anyone can do once it's been given away.

Mithridates

I think that it's fine because there's almost a billion ways to get around almost anything anyways.  What's another loophole?

Shirszae

You pay 750cr for the pet and the rp possibilities that come with it. This falls somewhat outside that realm. In any case, as a middle ground, it would be interesting for them to have at least a limit to what they can hold, much like it was done recently with containers all around the world. 

Mithridates

what rp possibilities?  I thought pets were for amnesia and reporting.  I think you're playing the game wrong. 

Jarrod

Invincibility is a benefit for reasons besides corpse holding.

Why would you be refunded? If it was determined that the mechanic is detrimental or unintentional, because player corpses are pretty strictly limited in other forms, then that's something you took a risk on when you purchased the pet. Everything comes with warnings that they can be changed. Removing the corpse-holding capability of pets would be a minor change into terms of what benefits invincibility offers, so I can't see a refund even being reasonable there.

Jarrod

I think corpses in general, at least player corpses, because of their power, should be more strictly controlled, not less.

Mithridates said:

I think that it's fine because there's almost a billion ways to get around almost anything anyways.  What's another loophole?

This is a bad mentality. Fix all the loopholes, don't let more open because some already exist.

Nemutaur

Not sure if I even like npc corpses being held by artie pets. If you defile a shrine and are killed the shrine defenders should be rewarded with the corpses you were going to use to defile to sanctify/reraise and if you were being too greedy do some defiling of their own.

The player corpse thing is mildly annoying because it denies your allies the chance to snag your body to rezz you after killing the artie pet owner.

I'd love it if you could only store gold and non-corpse items in a pet, but thats just me. 

Mishgul

if they are gonna let invincible pets keep corpses, i want my falcon retrieve corpse back.

Makarios

I'm afraid that bird has flown, as they say.

Tesha

Corpse holding by pets is "unintended", so it should be removed? Okay. The flavour text of earrings suggests it's not intended to be a combat artifact bought by everyone who might fight together. Let's make them have a max of 1 person you can have them with, and you have to be married. No refunds because you bought them for PvP rather than character love and you knew the risks when you bought them. This sounds fair, right? No, not really.

Pets holding corpses is rather unimportant. There's also no way to get your corpse back if someone grabs it and they escape somehow (earrings, empress, deliver, whatever). Consume prevents rez just as easily. You already get their corpse if you manage to kill a defiler, and you often do get much more essence than that. You can emulate this by just having someone else hold corpses and summon them when you need some corpses then get them summoned away again. 

If your shrines are getting defiled, people are bashing for that to happen. You should probably bash to raise them.

Mishgul

so why is falcon retrieving corpse bad if the above is fine?

Tesha

Because you could trigger falcon retrieve corpse off of deathsight while somewhere else completely, get the corpse instantly and retrieve it without ever putting yourself in danger. That's entirely different from not losing corpses you bashed for. I'm okay with pets not being able to hold player corpses if that's the concern, but they already can't go somewhere you tell them to (unless you move them room by room), and they already can't pick things up by themselves.

Aegoth

Corpses should drop on death.

Mithridates

Does soulcage drop corpses? Just wondering here. 

Mishgul

Our monks/dragon cannot soulcage to prevent corpse dropping which makes this highly irrelevant. If infernal and apostate weren't a minority class in Mhaldor that might be a different topic of debate, but if an infernal and apostate die, they will drop corpses, like everyone else, unless they use an artefact pet to hold the corpses, in which case the corpses are safe from harm.

As it stands, everyone with an artefact pet or a properly fleeing falcon can avoid losing corpses if they are careless, which makes defending shrines even more pointless. We can potentially turn shrine conflict into a completely safe way to stick it up someones bum if that is the best way to approach it though.

Antonius

Mishgul said:

so why is falcon retrieving corpse bad if the above is fine?

Because apparently Mhaldor received a ton of soulspears from falcon retrieving corpses. The change was in response to a classlead about how readily available and utterly ridiculous soulspear is.

Mishgul

Before this turns into a soulspear is OP debate, that's fair, but not something I was aware of, so it must be Tirac's fault as he was the only other infernal around at the time of it being nerfed. 

However my previous post still applies.

Aepas

Using your invincible pet as a corpse container seems near meta to me. This should never be the reason to get a pet, because it's stupid. It's just plain stupid. Might as well have customized it as a bag of holding and always keep it in your inventory. If you're taking the idea of a pet and using it as something completely different, I say you're wrong.

I'd be fine with invincible pets not being able to hold corpses, and I think it would be a good change.

Jules

Jarrod said:

Invincibility is a benefit for reasons besides corpse holding.

Why would you be refunded? If it was determined that the mechanic is detrimental or unintentional, because player corpses are pretty strictly limited in other forms, then that's something you took a risk on when you purchased the pet. Everything comes with warnings that they can be changed. Removing the corpse-holding capability of pets would be a minor change into terms of what benefits invincibility offers, so I can't see a refund even being reasonable there.

I'm not going to even pretend I understand the nuances of corpse holding itself, but there are *many* benefits to items that are not documented, and it's not unusual for players to consider those benefits pretty important.  Documentation in Achaea is better than it used to be, but still, most things are very sketchily defined, and that is mostly intentional.  

No one seems to consider this corpse thing a "bug", but if it's truly overpowered, fine, find a way to move forward and fix it, but it really does seem unfair to the players who own these items to turn around and say "uh uh uh, it didn't say the object did that, shut up while we go ahead and change it".  

Also gah, still so angry about all the mini-nerfs to falcons.  For awhile there admin was on a "let's change all of the cool little things about falcons" kick, well beyond the major change Mishgul mentioned (it does sound like *something* needed to be done there).  

EDIT:  also, what Tesha said, hehe.  Great way to put it, and hey, great way to deal with the earring controversy. 

Nim

Wait I can get the luggage as a pet? A...awesome! Please delete veils next upload so I can get one asap.

Jules

Sounds like it.  Still, I consider myself the best luggage there is.  No Meropian sherpa or amnesia pet can carry the load I can after a few moussakas.  

Kaden

I'll just leave this here: http://discworld.wikia.com/wiki/The_Luggage

Edit: Can I get one that can use Dragoncraft Devour?

Mathonwy

There's at least some form of counterplay to earrings. Whether it's enough or not is arguable, but still, it's present. That's absolutely not the case with giving corpses to invincible pets: it entirely bypasses that aspect of risk ("dying while defiling might mean The Other Team gets my corpses") in the risk/reward ratio.

@Aepas is right that it's extremely meta. Keeping corpses in invincible, mobile containers also means there's no way for the defending team to 'win' in shrine defense, which isn't and shouldn't be acceptable, either.

Mishgul

There's also a way to address this that does involve neutering a perk for those that already have pets.

Strata

I've always wanted a pet but haven't had the creds to get one. Getting one solely for the mechanical benefits such as the one being discussed here is just stupid. Why are half of you even playing the game when all you can think of is "What lame gimmick tactic can I come up with next." ?

Mishgul

Solution is a strong word. A corpse buffer is nonsensical. It makes shrine conflict unnecessary. What is the point of defending if you are going to fail to prevent that shrine being defiled with that specific battle? 

You might as well make corpses unable to be dropped in general. Pets are not the only things that can hold corpses this way and it sets a bad precedent if you can safely defile shrines using a proxy to hold your corpses. Like I said, we can potentially turn shrine conflict into a completely safe way to stick it up someones bum if that is the best way to approach it. 

I am happy to do this if that is what you want, I can tell everyone to stop raising and defiling shrines and make shrine conflict a thing of the past. We can happily do other things if that is what we want.

Mishgul

You described two situations. Now describe every single shrine conflict situation please, so we can get the whole picture of where this "perk" fits into all of them, just to filter out all the extremes so we can get a good picture of how it makes the game fun for everyone involved.

Mishgul

It's far from pointless. If we want the full implications to be considered, we need to lay all the cards on the table so that there is a fair judgement from all parties who read such posts, and that a complete investigation can be properly made. 

Mishgul

Is defiling a right to have however for a player? Is prolonging conflict beneficial? What makes a conflict, a good conflict?

Khairt

Invincible pets should randomly throw a few items into its room and adjacent ones when attacked a couple times in succession. This pinata effect would please me as an invincible pet owner. 

Strata

I'll be the voice of immaturity and "just say what you want to say" here @Mishgul.

The pet owners (@Daeir specifically) are upset that anyone would bring up a topic to discuss the possibility of allowing/disallowing invincible artefact pets to hold corpses. If falcon retrieve was nerfed, it makes sense to me to nerf this pet ability as well. If I spent the cr and went through all the hoops to get a pet, I would be saying the same thing - get rid of it. It would appear the pet owners are grasping at anything they can to justify keeping that as yet another "neener neener" tactic - and it disgusts me. (says a veiled serpent)