I have a suggestion. I don't know if this has been suggested before, but I would like to suggest that you give the pets their own unique a abilities that can only be use by their own species. I may be new, but looking a the proficiency board for my pets I can guess that all the pets can learn the same attacks. This kinda seems weird for them all being different species. No offense it's just something I noticed.

I think they allow all pets to learn all proficiencies for the same reason that the stats are the same (basically) across the board for the species; so that people aren't forced to use a particular type of pet in order to get a particular type of build. I know a lot of us use the idea of tank and two damage dealers. If one species was better at tanking, then everyone would eventually use that species to tank.

Personally, I have preference of a few of the species, and thus focus my efforts on those three. If the page "forced" me to go "Well I guess I will have a <pet> for a tank because the skills and stats are made for it" then I would feel less desire to play, especially if said pet was one I wasn't very fond of.

I like the idea of species specific skills, nothing major just perhaps they all get a starting skill to use. As is the pets make little difference in terms of effect, which is kind of sad, it makes them all feel mechanically the same and thus less unique. If you play any tabletop games you knwo that you have to pick the species that matches how you want to play, and although that can make you sad when you can't have your pixie flying around with a great-sword beating giants in arm wrestling matches you understand that it makes sense.

I haven't really seen pet adoptable games where pets are supposed to have one advantage over another. It's not like foxes are the equivalent of elves and are expected to be naturally fast and are great at long range combat, while dragons are super duper uber strong like ogres and are better at close combat, etc.

I've seen many adoptable games that add a combat element to the pets treat them all the same, so people don't really have quarrels over using one over another. I don't see it like any other MMO that restricts classes to races. In fact, most races are usually put in to be aesthetically pleasing. Then again, I was never fond of class-restricted games, or character-restricted games where if you wanted to be X, you had to be Y. (And you couldn't even change Y, so Y ended up always being forever the girly wimpy healer that wielded the same weapon forever and was stuck on her same white magic skillset)

At best, each pet has a slightly (by like one point) stat difference per pet in their str/int/dex/agi levels. I like the view that keeping things equal opportunity for all pets makes each one accessible without sacrificing much.

@Flute: That's a really dramatic view of the possible outcome. The suggestion isn't "Give Faelora the super awesome healing skill and make them unable to do anything else" or "Give Morkko a super defensive skill that makes them suck up all damage but balance it by destroying all the other skills for them." Currently there are minor stat differences that mean that there is a "Best" pet for each role, although only by a point or two which doesn't mean much, this means that the developer does have an idea of the type of creature each species is. What I believe is being recommended is something more like a 7th skill tree that each pet has, where the skills are different, not necessarily better then any others, but different. Of course with more options certain pets will become preferred for certain roles, but if you trust the developer then you should understand that it wont be so dramatic as to make certain pets useless for a role, or others the only choice for it, and most definitely wouldn't limit a pets ability to be exactly what it is capable of now.

I think what Flute means is that the current system is set up so that no one species does have that "preferred class" lean. Which is precisely why Krin has set the system this way rather than the way you are suggesting. While, yes, there are some small differences in what each breed has as base stats, they are in no way hindering you from building them any way you want. Krin wanted to avoid limiting (or even giving the feeling of limiting) breeds from being used in any way a player wanted to build them. Basically, no matter what you want to use in your party, you don't have to feel as though you are being cheated for not using a specific breed and their "built-in" specialty.

And, for that matter, Krin has stated that he likely won't be changing the way they are built now. He wants us to have the freedom of building a party any way we want to. With whatever breeds we want.

@Everyone: Just the clarify because it's very hard to tell on the internet: I'm not trying to be aggressive or insulting, I just want to work through the idea as best as possible.

@Shadow: I'm going to start from the bottom and work up on your comment because it's easier to respond to the stuff that you said at the end. If they don't want to change it that's fine, it's their game and they obviously don't have to listen to us, but the job of a suggestion isn't to lead a developer down a road they already plan on going down, it's to make them consider the things they haven't or better yet, re-consider the possibilities for things they'd thought wouldn't work well.
     Now, the major problem that seams to arise is that we want to have the freedom to build our teams however we want. Completely fair, who wants to be restricted? But building your team however you want doesn't have to mean that all options have to be equal. I'll be using pokemon as an example because MOST of us have played it. You can have whatever 6 pokemon you want, you can pick based on appearances, number of evolutions, element, what skills they can learn, their stats, whatever you like; but a cyndaquil and a chikorita (2nd gen starters) are completely different. Cyndaquil has aggressive burn skills (common for fire-types) while chikorita will have almost no direct attacks, relying on ailments, buffs, and de-buffs (moderately typical for grass-types), however you CAN teach it aggressive attack moves, they just aren't as effective as cyndaquils in most cases. But there are plenty of people who want to have an aggressive team who use chikorita, because although it's more leaned towards a passive fighter you can make it aggressive. Ugh this got way longer then I wanted >_> My point is in pokemon even though all the options aren't equal, it doesn't mean that people don't have the choice to build their team however they want, and do so. Currently the battle system is 3 dimensional: you pick stats ,elements, and where to position each party member. By adding pet unique skills you add a fourth dimension, what pet it is, to the equation and deepen the meaning of our choices. I'm really sorry if that seamed like ranting, I just wanted to use something we could all hopefully relate to and then I ended up havign to explain it more then I thought I would >_<

Just to add an official response to this.

This has been brought up a few times so far and our stance remains pretty firm.

We do not plan on adding any type of abilities, skills, or influential stats to specific species. We have tons of experience playing all sorts of different games that have racial abilities and it's always a disaster in the long-run. But this issue is two-fold.

The first is that even with just, say, 9 unique species, it'd be hard to balance the abilities. Just as a side note, balancing ANY ability with a handful of others is extremely difficult and takes a lot of time. It's a lot of number crunching and testing. The first major issue to this is that we plan on having dozens and dozens of species over the course of time. Having unique abilities for every species would be nearly impossible to balance. There would be some that would be amazing, some that are average, and some that are horrible.

The second part is that many players (myself included) are very min/max. If a Morkko makes a better tank than an Bulbori, I will use a Morkko as my tank. Why? Because it's better. Especially since our content is fairly difficult, anyone struggling with any fight will look for ways to improve and then feel forced to use a Morkko tank for its... idk, Bearskin ability that reduces incoming damage for the next 2 turns. Whereas Bulbori's might be... increase Quickness.


In conclusion, this is something we decided on very early on. Initially, we intended each species to have 2 unique abilities. Eventually, it became one. And then none. We want all species to be just as good as any other so players can safely choose to battle with the species they like the best for that role. If you want a Bulbori tank, then have at it. And you can feel confident that you aren't handicapping yourself by using an inferior tank.

But we greatly appreciate all suggestions, Mace and Darling. So please don't feel like you're being scolded or something. We have already implemented many things into the game based off of other's suggestions.

I hope this clears everything up. Please let me know if anyone has any questions.