So I spent some time thinking about pets in SoT.
In most games, "pets" are used to help their owner in fights, search of items scattered around the world or carrying a load and/or the player himself.
From what we think we know, there will at least two pets to pick from.
A cat and a parrot.
Now I can't see these being the usual type of battle pets and they most likely will be more of an entertainment but I still was able to think of a decent system that could make them a very useful feature.
At first imagine that there would be 3 main types of pets. (Swimming , walking and flying based animals) Each would have their own pros and cons depending on their type and all would be helpful in different situations of gameplay. Speaking of "swimming" I do not mean anything that couldn't also walk on the land.
Now all three would then have abilities to help in different ways.
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Spotting
So the first ability would be common to all three types. Lets pretend that to a cat and a parrot there would be another pet added. An otter.
Now the way I see it this would be an ability to be cast either on yourself, friend, enemy or an area (In case you wanna scout an outpost or pretty much anything) . Whatever would be the target, the pets would follow it, scouting out for danger. If on a ship, a parrot would be flying above around the ship in circles, cat sitting somewhere high up and the otter swimming around following the ship.
If an enemy ship or just enemy alone would be spotted, the pet would make a sound signal of some sort.
As I said, each would have their own pros and cons. For example, only an otter could spot enemies swimming under water (only while under water itself). The parrot could have the most vision distance as it would be high in the sky, and while the cat would have the same vision distance as the otter, it could also spot enemies at night at the same distance as it can do during the day. Others would have a very limited spotting ability at the darkness. -
Snatching
Now this is what we see Jack the monkey do most of the time in Pirates of the Caribbean and so it seems like a good idea.
Let's say you see an enemy player and manage to sneak up on him without being spotted (should have used a parrot, heh)
If you manage get your pet close enough and then guide it behind the enemies back, you could perhaps command it to snatch a little pouch (50 gold?) from behind enemy player's belt. Ofc, if the player turns around and sees the pet, the snatch command would be cancelled. -
Energy based aura
Now, I think it would be cool if you were to take a little bit of care for your pet. Being able to pet it, feed it, and just let it rest around would automatically fill up an "energy bar". Commanding the pet to scout around, snatch gold or possibly fight would however make the bar go down. Once depleted completely, the aura buff would ofc be 0% and the pet would only be following you around, trying to rest at moments of calm. This bar would be directly linked to a passive aura ability different for each species. For the purpose of this lets just say that a fully energised pet would give you +25% of a selected attribute. A happy otter could make you swim faster, a parrot maybe jump higher or give you more air control (which would be actually pretty useful while shooting yourself on an enemy ship) and the cat could maybe take away 25% of the fall damage and make you run 25% faster? You get the point tho. And obviously, the lower the bar, the weaker the aura for you and your friends. 50% energised pet would only give you 12.5% buff or something.
This way the pets would be rather useful while making you want to take good care of them too. As I said, I don't see them fighting in a normal sense. Maybe knocking a weapon out of the enemy hands or stunning them by jumping on their head and scratching, but that's about it. Also, if pet gets killed, it would get "spirited away" just like the players and at some point just respawned back to the owner.
So what do you think? Good idea or am I just overthinking it? Should the pets be warriors or just cute little balls of fluff and what pets would you want to see apart from parrots, cats and otters? Leave all your thoughts below!
