An idea for a pet tank

[Marveth]

Imagine a shapeshifter, something that has been done before in games to quite satisfactory levels. Although never perfect.

One of the big issues with shapeshifting jobs however is that you hardly get to see your character. This renders a lot of gear progression to becoming just stats on a sheet. Not to mention the popular glamour end-game ends up moot.

Enter the pet job, you get to have both your pet and character but it's quite clunky and if we are going to have a tank we need a pet that is able to react quick and dodge mechanics accordingly, lest it risk being OP or useless.


THE IDEA
My idea is simple yet very cool, or so I believe Your character is of magic origin with clothing to match. He have at least two very defining skills just like all the other tanks. But where the other tanks have two stances he have two pets. One defensive and one offensive.

Sigh you think, because you already imagine lots of issues with this proposition already. Like the clunkiness of stance dancing or how the seemingly slow responsiveness of the pets in this game would make this idea impossible. But I'm not done yet.

When you click one of the pets, it will appear immediately and a visual bond will be made between you and your pet. The camera will shift to the pet instead of your character and your controls will now control the pet and only the pet. Just as if it were your character. This should prevent any clunky lag that can happen when ordering pets around, it will also give you total control over your pet.

But what about my character? The character will float in the air in a stasis like posture for all intent and purpose you are now your pet and your character is nothing but an empty husk drifting between worlds.
A voidwalker if you will. You will retain your HP and all other stats, and every hit on your pet will count towards your own HP. Your character will be immune to damage until you remove your pet or your pet dies, because if your pet dies you die. Thats right, your life and the life of your pet is one.

A very ugly interpretation of the execution that I designed only for you.


The differences between the two pets are simple, one has a 20% reduced damage taken and 20% damage reduction like tank stance and the other has a higher DPS potential like a DPS stance of our current tanks. The time to summon the pet should be immediate to simulate stance dancing, the enmity of your pet will transfer to your other pet should you switch, or to you if no pet is present. HP and other resources will also carry over when switching pets to prevent abuse.

The pets could be visually very different and offer different abilities. Your character itself does not need any abilities, in fact all the ROLE SKILLS should be useable by your pets and not by you.

Sounds like fun?
I deliberately left most design and abilities very vague as I'm trying to sell a concept rather than a fully fleshed out job. An idea of something we have not yet seen in FFXIV or any MMO that I can recall. Hope you like it =)

TLDR
A pet tank but when your pet is summoned your character is immune to damage, the camera and all control is moved to your pet that you are now in total control of. The hp and rescources of your pet is directly linked to the HP and resources of your character. Should your pet die while you are controlling it, you will also die.

[Sylvain]

So basically you want to control the pet while having your character skin floating around?
I don't really see the point.
Regarding glamour, it is an issue and WoW found a way to somewhat fix it altough it seems to be very ressource intensive since they need to dish new skins and colors every patch for them. And ofc the choice still is far more limited than what you can have on another char.

This is probably the reason why we'll never have a shapeshifter, and I don't think your idea will seduce SE

[Tzain]

So basically you want to control the pet while having your character skin floating around?
I don't really see the point.
Regarding glamour, it is an issue and WoW found a way to somewhat fix it altough it seems to be very ressource intensive since they need to dish new skins and colors every patch for them. And ofc the choice still is far more limited than what you can have on another char.

This is probably the reason why we'll never have a shapeshifter, and I don't think your idea will seduce SE

Well, if the 'body types' are basically reskins of the existing player ones, maybe with some scaling involved you might be able to get away with it.
Let's assume the character is a Lala, and uses their tank form to switch to a slightly larger than normal Roe model.
The same glamour would appear on the new model.
Now just turning into a Roe is boring, but if the Roe had say a behemoth head, long claws, and goat legs you could bring them in as replacements to the head/glove/shoe glamours leaving the chest/pants in place for style.

As for the Aether connection, I get the style, and it might be possible to play with it the way Ley lines work, where you can teleport back to your 'body', which is completely impervious to damage when you are not 'in it' and is really just a visual effect, but due to how busy the screen can be adding another visual effect to confuse people who are not the pet-tank feels annoying more than anything.
It's workable, but it has some wrinkles to iron out.

[Savagelf]

I like us to move away for glamour center end game or glamour center pets

I rather have people work for they pet have them have they own exp bar that been in my exp the most fun pet systems. ffxiv comminuty is obsession with glamouring everything and not take time to value hard work on get the thing that they tried get. I like see pet not be all glamoured.
for beastmaster or puppetmaster

it very socialist

beastmaster should have challenge to find rare pet and tame it. Job are fun when they challenge a players not one size fite all

puppetmaster is best choice for pet jobs.

beastmaster is more suit for melee dps. using whip
I think jobs should challenge players to play them differently. this my opinion.

look jobs are meant to be different and challenging in they playing style. Dark knight as a tank is different for Paladin as a tank.
Puppetmaster could be like a job where damage taking is trade to mammets and the debuffs aswell. it allow mammat to complete custimiseable so you transfer damage and the mammet could ability to asorb the damage or shake it off. different mammets piece could cut down on length of the debuffs or turn the debuff it healing for mammets. I don't think player need control the mammet and leave they body doing it. pet jobs should hybrids where you fight side by side with your pet and not directly control them

[Savagelf]

the truth of this ideal is not pet tank Job but slave tank. your control every move of your so called pet make. pet in really life have they own personality they habits they eat when they want the go bathroom where they trained to go. in WOW this game rival the hunter pet in vanilla was amazing It indeed had it own personality. I think beast master should be like vanilla wow hunter and improve on that. the issue with legion and other wow expansion they start to gum the hunter pet down make it to simple and take away for the pet. your system is expanding on the legion hunter pet to fullest you are in complete control of your beast it won't be fun at all. this why what you want Is puppetmaster cuase you control your puppet. a beast isn't controllable all time that what made vanilla wow hunter pet system awesome when you mistreat your pet it run away for oyu. just like really animals will. mmorpg has the air fantasy but a connection to reality aswell.

[Marveth]

The point is that I think it will look cool and appeal to a lot of people :-)

How your character is displayed is up to interpretation. For example if he is unconscious it will give the appeal that your soul or essence has been transferred to the pet.

Another take could be that your character is very much active using magic gestures and giving the appeal that he is pulling the strings from the void.

If you want a darker approach to the job then instead of energy connecting the two, there could be chains physically binding them together in a sort of agonizing way reminiscent of Anima from FFX. Enforcing that you are in command of a ferocious being.

The way I see it it's a tank job that is visually very different from what we have, it should feel very different from what we have but mechanically it should not be all that different and difficult to balance. This should make it easier than it appears to create from a development standpoint which is something that should appeal to most game developers I believe.

[Pastahnak]

I can't really see them doing this aether connection, but I do like the idea of actively controlling the pet. I could see them doing this with beast master where you sit on your beast like any sort of mount making it a super mobile tank. I couldn't wouldn't see them having multiple beasts but maybe having different skins for the beast to add variety.

[Savagelf]

Puppetmaster perfect tank job. beastmaster would more a dps job allow players to tame multiply pets and fight side by side with them. puppetmaster I could see them make tank job since mammet are great for that

[Marveth]

Riding the beast would also be a cool idea, like the tamer in black desert except fighting on your mount should be the main style of play.
I like this idea as well.

[Savagelf]

I like see SE bring rare spawn for beastmaster Notorious beast Spawn nothing like wait 4 to 8 hour and have paladin come and tried killed you beast or a summoner or dark knight hehe
for puppetmaster one could have tank move debuff to they mammets give it paper doll equipment slots so they change which equipment the mammet have also make so debuff don't effect as much

I rather beastmaster be melee dps

and puppetmaster tank.

you have puppet part made by Goldsmith
puppets weapon black smiths
beastmaster weapon made by leatherworker it be bull whip
pet food would be made by a Culinarian
puppetmaster weapon carpters