Arelith

It is half feedback and half suggestion.

It would be nice if animal companion timeout was based on companions remaining HP upon despawning. Meaning... if hp was full it would be recallable immediately. However, if HP was zero (it died), then it would be full 10 minutes wait. Likewise 5 minute wait if hp was half, etc. I.e. "timeout = 10 * ((maxHp - remainingHp)/maxHp) minutes".

The reason for this is that there are bunch of areas that don't like some of the companions, and dismissing one takes it out of business for a whopping 10 minutes, which can be quite annoying.

I apologize for being a bit off topic, but when did they make the change to animal companions to be on a timer?

It has been a long time since I've played a druid but I thought I had kept up with the updates, though I guess not if I missed this. Also I don't see it on the wiki though I may be looking in the wrong spot.

rookie wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 4:16 am I apologize for being a bit off topic, but when did they make the change to animal companions to be on a timer?

It has been a long time since I've played a druid but I thought I had kept up with the updates, though I guess not if I missed this. Also I don't see it on the wiki though I may be looking in the wrong spot.

Huh. Well, that's interesting. Could've sworn that it was on the wiki somewhere, but it seems it isn't.

The animal companion, however IS on timer, same timer as familiars. Meaning you don't have "one use per day" anymore (which is understandable, because you can't rest at the drop of a hat anymore), but if you dismiss it, you'll have to wait till you can summon it again.

As far as I can tell, it exact same mechanics on rangers, mages, and most likely druids.

I have no idea when this change was introduced, as far as I know it existed prior to EE switch.

I haven't encountered this yet, my familiar is on a 1/day timer. I rest and I get to cast it again. Are there more mechanics to this, is the delay level based?

I'm not seeing anything in the update thread about a cooldown for animal companions/familiars (in fact there's an update that specifically states that familiars were rolled back to 1/day), so if you're getting a cooldown, that might be a bug.

Baron Saturday wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 3:05 am I'm not seeing anything in the update thread about a cooldown for animal companions/familiars (in fact there's an update that specifically states that familiars were rolled back to 1/day), so if you're getting a cooldown, that might be a bug.

(-_-)
They are on cooldown.


However, apparently only ranger animal companion has a cooldown, and not a familiar. Which is weird. Could've sworn familiar also had the cooldown before.

Huh. That's really weird. It's not documented anywhere, and I know it's not a default NWN thing. That's either a shadow update to ranger, or an unintended side effect of another update, like the barbarian tribal summon.

Baron Saturday wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 3:54 am Huh. That's really weird. It's not documented anywhere, and I know it's not a default NWN thing. That's either a shadow update to ranger, or an unintended side effect of another update, like the barbarian tribal summon.

Blackguard summons behave in exactly the same way, with same cooldown duration.

So, it could be a case of something like format("{0} has been locked", featName), and behavior incorrectly applied to ranger companions.

I've made a thread about it here:
viewtopic.php?f=12&p=152351#p152351

Baron Saturday wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 3:54 am Huh. That's really weird. It's not documented anywhere, and I know it's not a default NWN thing. That's either a shadow update to ranger, or an unintended side effect of another update, like the barbarian tribal summon.

There was an update which mentioned this cooldown some months ago in the official updates thread. I do not have time to dig about the updates to find it right now, but it is or at least was there!

I've searched "animal companion," "ranger," and "cooldown" in the update thread, but I can't find any mention if it.

Baron Saturday wrote: Tue May 08, 2018 1:35 am I've searched "animal companion," "ranger," and "cooldown" in the update thread, but I can't find any mention if it.

I think it happened when the studied enemy changes went in, but I don't know for sure. I can confirm it's in though -- I've noticed it on my ranger.

Not mentioned in that update either. But, since it seems to be a shadow update rather than a bug, I'll bring it up in the wiki thread.

It might be a leftover from when ranger companions were made super OP. There's an update that mentions them being reverted to vanilla, but maybe the cooldown stuck around.

Baron Saturday wrote: Tue May 08, 2018 1:47 am Not mentioned in that update either. But, since it seems to be a shadow update rather than a bug, I'll bring it up in the wiki thread.

It might be a leftover from when ranger companions were made super OP. There's an update that mentions them being reverted to vanilla, but maybe the cooldown stuck around.

I think it might be a good idea to poke the devs and make SURE it is intended. Because my "bug report" thread - that mentioned it - had no response.

No need. I have my nose around.
I was waiting for a link so I can confirm it before smacking it in.

Iceborn wrote: Tue May 08, 2018 10:13 pm No need. I have my nose around.
I was waiting for a link so I can confirm it before smacking it in.

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18365

It's bugged though. If you summon your companion, and it dies or you un-summon it ... all works as intended.

If you cross a server-boundary, or get logged-out due to server-reset while your companion is summoned (which un-summons it) then you never get it back until you rest. -no your companion does not refresh automatically on Server Reset... still a mystery on that one.

Meaning, if you log back into the game, your companion timer is not refreshed automatically. If you cross a server-boundary, your companion timer is not refressed at all. If you are not able to rest... or if you forget to rest, and get in a bind, and wish to summon your companion, even though you've been logged into the game for a RL hour and hadn't had a chance to rest yet (cuz you know... that happens) your companion isn't coming to save your butt.


Moral of the Story: Always Manually Unsummon your companion. Even at scheduled/known server resets.

Regarding the cooldown breaking, that happens to any of the summons on a timer. I've had it happen with blackguard, shadowdancer, and warlock summons as well. I'm sure it affects tribal barbarians, too.