The big 4, Dragons, Drakes, Wyrms, and Nightmares all require a significant amount of Taming and Lore to establish control over, if you plan on using the Big 4 I strongly recommend having GM lore, or getting Lore as high as you can.
When you tell an animal to do something the game does a loyalty check, it makes a number (we will say between 1 and 10, but its a bit more complicated than that) of your present ability to control an animal, that number is 70% your taming ability and 30% of your animal lore skill.
It takes that figure and compares it against any given animals normal taming difficulty, a black bear (35.1 skill required to tame) will follow almost any command from a tamer with 50 taming and 50 lore, but a Giant toad (77.1 skill required to tame) would listen very poorly, if it listens at all.
There seem to be 4 primary factors that modify how your pet behaves beyond your taming skill/Lore and its taming, there may be others, but these 4 are definite and you CAN NOT overlook.
The Current happiness of your Pet is a GIANT modifier in your pets' obedience. Feed the pet and they instantly will go to "Wonderfully happy" and most apt to obey, each time they go 1 step down in happiness levels (there are 11 stages of happiness, see the table below) they become a little harder to control. If you have say a black bear (35.1 skill to tame) that has gone from wonderfully happy to very happy (the 3rd from max happiness) and your a 50 taming 50 animal lore tamer your not going to notice much, however if your skills are the same but you have an alligator (min taming 47.1) he is going to start Ignoring some of your orders, or "giving you lip" (the angry growl) when you tell him to do something.
Feed the pet and it will instantly go to maximum happiness.
For the higher end creatures (like the big 4) 80/80 is sufficient to have reasonable control, 85/85 is better 85/100 is even better, and 92/100 is great. At around 80/80 I would look into buying a dragon. You can actually buy a dragon with 70/70 (less than that and the game will not let the pet be transferred to you) but 70/70 the beast will listen to almost nothing you say, if you try taking them anywhere the odds are overwhelming that it will just go wild and be killed or guard whacked.
80/80 is a good time to buy a dragon, but don't stop your taming training, you will notice a HUGE difference between 80/80 and 85/85 in control of the beast.
When I was a new tamer and was at 83 taming/90 lore I lost a dragon on Siege to a -SINGLE- PK that I would not have lost had my skill in taming and lore been a little higher. The Dragon just didn't listen well enough and the 1 pk named Corn pop was able to lure it away by shooting it with a bow, running starting his healing macro, hiding, and repeating.
I almost had the dragon under control several times, but that is "almost". Definitely not good enough, and ended up loosing a dragon out of it.
The next time I see Cornpop I will probably have to thank him, his 1 act, lol, enraged, and Embarrassed me enough to Train up Taming and Lore.
When your a higher level tamer you can be a little more flexible with lower end pets, but with the Big 4, you need to feed them every few minutes.
There is a significant difference in a Wyrms (or any big 4) obedience when they are
When I'm out with a dragon I will general take a stack of 21 (or so) raw meat with me, and feed the pet constantly, as I'm hunting I will occasionally cut meat off the monsters we kill to make sure I have a lot of food on hand. In addition to keeping him fed every few minutes, I also feed him if he takes a lot of damage, disobeys a few commands in a row, or if I was out of his Line of sight, all of those things lower a pets happiness. Taking a lot of damage makes the pet less responsive for a moment or two, it doesn't lower their happiness, but feeding them brings them back to a good level of responsiveness.
Basically things don't want to be attacking things that have a chance of killing them, Ordering Drakes onto Dragons is doable, but harder than ordering Dragons onto Dragons, its that...."anti suicide code" :) (I'm sure there is another name for it.)
One of the biggest challenges of PvM (Player Vs Monster) combat is to find a target, then get your Dragon attacking it before the target notices and targets you.
When I was still a young tamer, in the 85/85 range. I bought a lot of Drakes and learned "my" player skills with them. I could buy drakes for 2k but Dragons cost 9k, (This was Siege gold so 2k vs 9k was a HUGE difference). Drakes are a little harder to control than dragons, and they are Very Very tough, but no where near as tough as a dragon.
They would WINE unbelievably when sending them against Stone Harpies, and Cyclops warriors. A drake can kill either of those, easily but they are tough monsters.
A Dragon will usually listen to you, it is much better behaved that way than a drake, but you will still notice a higher amount of disagreements when telling it to do something dangerous.
Pets have a natural inclination, the Dragon, Drake, Nightmare and Wyrm are not just different colored versions of the same beast.
Drakes have been called "stupid" I prefer to use the word obstinate. They are the weakest of the big 4, and can cast no magic, other than curing themselves like ogre lords do of poison. They are fast tho, they can follow you much faster than a Dragon can (they can follow a PK you stick them on a lot faster than a dragon too...lol).
Dragons are the most agreeable as far as following orders, but they have the most "ideas of their own too" a lot of times after combat they will just fly off, even over water which is a special pain to "unstick them" if they happen to stop flying and park it on water. (Use the Gate method to unstick them in the tricks of the trade section). Dragons will attack a lot of things on their own as well, I don't mean something attacks them then they go into war mode and chase it, I mean you will be traveling with your dragon, and it spots a monster that it doesn't like, it will stop, walk over, attack it... Then they try and fly off unless you are right there telling them to follow you and feeding them! :) Dragons are also slow compared to drakes and Wyrms.
Wyrms are Fast, and in general wont be taking Detours when your going somewhere with them. Higher-level tamers often prefer the Wyrm to the dragon over this. Lower level tamers are often better off with a dragon tho as it is marginally better for following commands (Its 93.9 on the taming scale as opposed to a Wyrm which is 96.3 to tame)
If you're an 85/85 or even 90/100 tamer, the dragon will obey more of your commands than the Wyrm, but the dragon is more easily sidetracked. If you a 95/100 tamer the Wyrm will be just about as easy to control as a dragon, and at any level of taming Wyrms don't get as sidetracked as dragons.
Nightmares are between a dragon and a drake for toughness, and between a dragon and a Wyrm for obedience, their other factor that they are ride able makes them extremely useful. Their are a lot of tamers that never bother with lugging dragons and Wyrms around, they just ride their nightmare up to monsters, dismount order the mare to kick their butt and when the combat is over (and the mare has calmed down) remount and head off to the next fray.
If your mounted on a mare is just like a normal horse but with a LOT more stamina, it wont take part in the combat (unless you dismount or die) but it will take you anywhere you want to go just like a horse would, there is never a skill check as long as you have the Minimum taming/lore of 60/60 or higher, but the second you get off and start telling it what to do its just like a Dragon, Drake or Wyrm (Skill checks, current happiness, suicidal orders etc).
Every time you tell your tame what to do, if it disobeys you there is a chance it will instantly drop a level of loyalty, if you re-issue the order you have less chance of them obeying you the first time because they are not as happy (their loyalty leval dropped once) if they disobey you again it can happen again. If your telling your beast to do something and it isn't doing it, Feed it! then try again. Feeding it will bring it back up to maximum loyalty.
If you hang out in Skara long enough, or even occasionally at the brit bank, you will see a newbie tamer that has purchased a beast that is trying to get it to do something like follow them, they spam out:
All follow meOr they say any order several times in a row, the beast is like "Talk to the hand", then Boom it goes wild and gets guard whacked, sometimes the tamer gets guard whacked too. Feed them constantly, when it takes damage, or disobeys a few orders in a row and that wont happen :)
As a final note on "Dragon (or other big 4 creatures) Control. The knowledge is floating around that a person can own a dragon with 70/70 taming and animal lore, then their is a rumor...perpetuated by those who have not tried it... that a Dragon can be controlled at 75/75 Taming and Lore. Please try and put that rumor as far from your head as possible. If you take a dragon that you bought away from the stables at 75/75 it will be the last time you see that dragon. Its a loss for you because of the cost and effort of purchasing a dragon (not to mention that its a "noble" beast) but also having a loose dragon that went wild because some Twink couldn't control their animal is a very bad thing in the area that the now wild dragon is rampaging. Other players find this anywhere from mildly annoying to open contempt. Its probably the second or third biggest reason that soo many people "have it in" for tamers. Train up to at least 80/80 or 80/100 before taking your pets out hunting! :)
Rough % of orders obeyed
L = Less than 1 in 20 orders will be obeyed.
Combined control rating is 70% of a characters taming skill and 30% of a characters lore skill. Animal Lore is a Necessary skill to have to use the big 4, you cant even have a dragon transferred to you if you have less than 70/70 taming and lore, or a night mare with less than 60/60 taming and lore.
This table assumes that the pet is at maximum happiness (has just been fed), PLEASE keep in mind that if you give a pet an order and the pet does not carry out that order he will go down on the happiness scale, each time they slide down the happiness scale, its a -5% chance of them obeying the next order you give them. For example if you are an 80/80 tamer and you tell a dragon "all follow me" you have a 35% chance of success. If you give the order and the dragon does not follow you (as would happen 65% of the time) the dragon will probably loose a level of Loyalty/happiness, which means you only have a 30% chance of it obeying the next order you give it. If you spam out "all follow me" "all follow me" "all follow me" "all follow me" and it still hasn't followed you, you now have only a 15% chance of getting it to obey. Two things, 1-make sure you carry a lot of food because you will have to feed it constantly, the lower level tamer you are the more you will have to feed it. (Even GM tamer/GM lore players should feed at least once every 10 minutes or so). 2-Keep training to get your taming and animal lore level up.
L = Less than 1 in 20 orders will be obeyed.| Taming Skill/Animal lore | 50/0 | 50/50 | 70/0 | 70/70 | 80/0 | 80/80 | 85/0 | 85/85 | 85/100 | 90/0 | 90/100 | 100/100 |
| Combined Control Rating | 35 | 50 | 49 | 70 | 56 | 80 | 59.5 | 85 | 89.5 | 63 | 93 | 100 |
| Dragon 93.9 | L | L | L | L | L | 35% | L | 56% | 78% | L | 95% | 98% |
| Drake 95.1 | L | L | L | L | L | 25% | L | 49% | 72% | L | 90% | 98% |
| Nightmare 95.1 | L | L | L | L | L | 25% | L | 49% | 72% | L | 90% | 98% |
| White Wyrm 96.3 | L | L | L | L | L | 19% | L | 44% | 66% | L | 84% | 98% |
Use animal lore for a loyalty check aka the Happiness scale, The are most apt to obey on the top of this scale, and least obedient/ready to go wild on the bottom of the scale. Feeding a pet something will instantly make them "wonderfully happy". The difficulty to tame a pet determines how fast it will slip down the scale. Pets like horses can go for 3 hours or more without going wild, but things like dragons can go from wonderfully happy, to wild in under 20 minutes. In addition to feeding the pet, if you leave a pets Line of Sight they loose loyalty at a very rapid rate.
Wonderfully happy