Bio Engineer Archive

If you want to sell Womp Rats to non-ch and make the equivalent of what a CH can already tame for free, where do you think the BE profession will end up?

The more you two argue, the more I really hope your wrong.

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DialUp wrote:

I am getting tired of hearing "exploit" in the BE forum. It is not an exploit at all. It is working as designed and saying exploit makes us soud like cheaters when we are, in fact, doing no such thing. If this is not as intended, they should fix it or make the creatures temporarily extinct. They have not, and they must know about it, so this tells me it is not a priority to keep these pets out of circulation. Therefore, why should we not do what is fun? Making really cool pets is fun. It is available to me and I play this game for fun. If it turns out that this is intended, we will be foolish for holding out whiles others fill the market for us.

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Exploit or not, you have to use some common sense here. The December patch played with how pet handling abilities were granted in the CH tree and severely downgraded the capabilities of wild pets, specifically to reduce the tanking capabilities of CH's and to restrict the type of pets which are available to the non-CH player population at large.

If you think the current ability of BE's to produce sub-CL 10 super pets is "working as intended" in the context of the current patch, then you're living in a dream world. These pets fly in the face of stated SOE rationale for why the CH profession changes and non-CH pet changes were made.

BE's need to handle this situation with restraint. Most, if not all, of the SOE development staff is currently on holidays but they will be back in early January. If they find the servers overrun with super pets, the reaction will probably be quick and drastic. As a CH, I am intimately and painfully familiar with SOE's behavior in the face of what they believe to be game shifting imbalances. Creature Handlers feel the hand of SOE in each and every patch, to the point where we now need to get our top-end pets from a BE (since I'm now taking up BE as my second profession, not a bad thing ).

However, if BE's don't want to be paying for this 2-3 week spree for the next six months, they need to have a little discretion. Remember, there hasn't been an online game made where "but the game mechanics let me do it" has been accepted as a valid excuse. I doubt this will be the first game where it will.

Which is why I agree we should be able to make stuff that us better. However I'd say the clones can still be 500 more HAM which isn't overpowered and would still be valuable and superior to the wild animals.

Zaket- I agree with you. My point is/was, without any official word on it, this is just opinion. Who are we to determine what was intended. Certanly the system is bugged but we are not exploiting it. We are using it as designed. I have not seen the code so I am not qualified to second guess the dev team.

This reminds me back when people were saying that trading pets in the trade window without the transfer command was an exploit. people called me an exploiter, back then, because I was selling pets and did not have the skill to train transfer. Well guess what? It was not an exploit and there has been official word saying pets can be traded via trade window (as long as they are no aggro and fall under the non ch cl).

I am just getting tired of speculation becoming reality without hearing it straight from the horses mouth.

We are not qualified to say it is an exploit. Maybe if there was some sort of documentation on how the system works we could be but there is none. From this point on, as far as I am concerned, the system is working just as it was designed (coded) to. I am a MBE and have the ability to use this new system. So, I will until I hear otherwise.

BTW I too am a MCH and I have felt your pain with the ch nerfs. But with being a MBE/MCH, things could not be better for us with the new system

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meroc wrote:

(Note: with 5k HAM and 40% resist this gives them an effective 7k HAM, whichisclose to the 2200 HAMAR1 25% Kin of the oldRock Beetle).

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5k 40%resist.. unless I'm doing the math incorrectly is 8333 effective HAM. (effHAM=HAM / (1-resist))

Rock Beetle (one of the best pre-patch) is 2200HAM, AR1, 25kinetic... again unless my math is screwy thats 5867 effective HAM. And this was a CL14? creature pre-patch? or CL15? (effHAM = HAM / (2 (1-resist)) )

Even at 7k vs 5k thats a large difference. The tremendous damage increase is even more of an eyesore.

Point to a single creature in the wild with even remotely simliar stats to the super-pets this feature of the cloning system is allowing. Just ONE single creature, babies or not, that is even remotely CLOSE to the stats we're getting.

I can link probably 15 posts by Thunderheart (and others) detailing what the creature changes were being implemented for (balance laterally and vertically for CL's in particular). I can't find a single post by them saying they were going to make creature-petsBETTER across the board by raising statistics and lowering the CL's. We were told BE pets were going to be better than wild versions... but if that is hope everyone pins on this lunacy being purposeful, I think they're all in for a huge disappointment.

But I'm gonna let everyone go on with the rose-colored glasses. I'll even try to avoid the "I TOLD YOU SO" when they get nerfed into oblivion by having either their CL adjusted or being stuck in the datapad with "Invalid stats". I'd rather be exploring the mechanics of the system for making pets that make sense, rather than abusing a hole in the system.

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Tal-N wrote:

Which is why I agree we should be able to make stuff that us better. However I'd say the clones can still be 500 more HAM which isn't overpowered and would still be valuable and superior to the wild animals.

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Superior to wild? Yes. Valuable to non-CHs? Not a chance, in my humble opinion. Such pets would insure no real market for BEs from non-CHs. I have asked many times whatis the purpose ofbioengineerednon-CH pets in the new system, and have yet to get any type of response.

Mounts to non-CH in the era of speeders are worthless unless they can provide some decent tanking ability, and 1.5-2K HAM with no resists is not going to getanyone very far <shrugs>. If this vision is what the Devs truly have inmind for all creatures, then essentially what they are saying is that non-CHs should never have a pet. Perhaps they should just create a non-combat mount for non-CHs, although I bet those would not exactly be flying off the shelves, either.

The Devs painted themselves into a corner when they devised a combat system without including any tanking ability on the part of the players. Enterpets to fill the void. This was not their vision, so they are trying desparately to change things with the creature rebalance, combat changes andpending droid enhancements. On top of this they desparatelywant asystem to enforce grouping on a player base, 2/3 of which prefers solo PvE play in the face of a player-unfriendly grouping system.

I do not envy the task ahead of them....

You tell most of the soloing non-CH player base that they are limited to pets of that quality under the current mechanics of combat, and they will certainly look elsewhere for their needs, including the competing MMORPGs.

I am not sure I have a solution this dilemna faced by the Devs, although I am hopeful that coming combat changes and droids enhancements will re-establish some semblance of order to this confusing and frustrating situation.

Yes, the situationis out of control/unbalancing and needs to be addressed, but all this istaking placein the context of what I believe was an overly severe nerf to pets in the first place, given the current limitations of combat within the game.

Therein lies my own point of view......

Took me a while to find out how to actually work out effective HAM's, but here is the comparison:

Post Rock Beetle: 2200 HAM, 25% and AR1 = 5500

Your example: 7500/4000/3000 averaged =4833 + 20% =9000/4800/3600 or averaged 5799

Probot: 820, 40%, AR2 = 5492

Seems pretty balanced really, unless you argue that health is more important than the other pools.

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Germaine wrote:

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Tal-N wrote:

Which is why I agree we should be able to make stuff that us better. However I'd say the clones can still be 500 more HAM which isn't overpowered and would still be valuable and superior to the wild animals.

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Superior to wild? Yes. Valuable to non-CHs? Not a chance, in my humble opinion. Such pets would insure no real market for BEs from non-CHs. I have asked many times whatis the purpose ofbioengineerednon-CH pets in the new system, and have yet to get any type of response.

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I'll offer my opinion on it.

Anything is better than nothing.

It is really that simple.

If droids max out at 3k effective HAM. Wild non-CH pets max out at 3k effective HAM. They're going to be used.

So 3500 effective HAM is an improvement.

People will pay for a slightly better pop-gun. Thats really all it is.

I share your doubt for the long term viability of our class though. Mounts are thing of the past with vehicles being sooooooo much faster. I rarely, if ever, pop out my mount. About the only time I do is when I'm not near my residence (its on Talus in a city getting someone xp). My labs are around my shop on Corellia. I pop my mount around there rather than pitching a tent (gotta run too far to finda spot to get a tent down).

There might be some growth in the mount market to get people switched over to slightly better models(more HAM / resists to double as pet-tank while serving as a mount) or for new colors.

Decay on creatures is pathetically slow unless you get griefed in PvP. I don't PvP alot and have yet to have a pet need replacing.

BUt all that isn't really to the point.... the point being that if you can have a slightly better edge (better pet), even if that edge is of minimal utility (a non-CH pet), people are going to buy them. What else are they going to spend their credits on? I buy alot of neat stuff for that simple reason. What am I going to do with my credits? Hhehehe buy slightly better toys.

At this point, I don't think it matters if we call it an exploit or not. We KNOW it's going to be changed/nerfed/fixed. It's just a matter of time before the change/nerf/fix, so why waste our time with these bugged pets or take advantage of people by selling these pets when we KNOW what is coming. I admit I have sold a few of the uber non ch pets but only after being begged to makethem and after having a long discussion with the buyer about the fact that I'm sure a change/nerf/fix is coming for these pets and try to make sure that they shouldn't expect to keep them long. In the meantime, we have noticed that these pets grow really fast andsome buyersare getting a lot of good use out of them for the time being.

What will make me angry is if the other types of pets we are making are changed or nerfed as well. If I work for hours to make a level 35 with 10k hps, light armor, 400 damage, 60% kinetic, 40% energy and other resists in the decent level with two good specials...are these going to be changed/nerfed/fixed too? It would be like a month long roll back for all of us who have spent oodles of time to figure out the system and to make really nice pets (not talking about the bugged dna pets) and honestly I think that would be enough for me to finally pack it in. They can go on and on about how they need to make these changes for the betterment of the game and repeat the same cliche nerf excuses that I am so tired of hearing but the fact is none of us play to beta test this game and they don't seem to be learning or getting any better at testing the changes that they are putting out and I'm tired of having to pay for their short-sightedness.

*Zen

Zen, thats one of my fears too. But sadly, they might get effected.

Don't know what you used to make the cl35 with those stats, but I've come very close to that using all 1st generation DNA (CL33 mid9kHAM 1.99 @ 0.35 for 460 ranged damge, stun / intimidate, 29k 35e, light armor... one off the top of my stack of clone worksheets). SO if you used 2nd generation or stacking Mental / Psych with lowball stuff... at least your results are close to what all 1st generation simliar level on all slots stuff produces.

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Sumorex wrote:

I'll offer my opinion on it.

Anything is better than nothing.

It is really that simple.

If droids max out at 3k effective HAM. Wild non-CH pets max out at 3k effective HAM. They're going to be used.

So 3500 effective HAM is an improvement.

People will pay for a slightly better pop-gun. Thats really all it is.

I share your doubt for the long term viability of our class though. Mounts are thing of the past with vehicles being sooooooo much faster. I rarely, if ever, pop out my mount. About the only time I do is when I'm not near my residence (its on Talus in a city getting someone xp). My labs are around my shop on Corellia. I pop my mount around there rather than pitching a tent (gotta run too far to finda spot to get a tent down).

There might be some growth in the mount market to get people switched over to slightly better models(more HAM / resists to double as pet-tank while serving as a mount) or for new colors.

Decay on creatures is pathetically slow unless you get griefed in PvP. I don't PvP alot and have yet to have a pet need replacing.

BUt all that isn't really to the point.... the point being that if you can have a slightly better edge (better pet), even if that edge is of minimal utility (a non-CH pet), people are going to buy them. What else are they going to spend their credits on? I buy alot of neat stuff for that simple reason. What am I going to do with my credits? Hhehehe buy slightly better toys.

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Thanks for the reply, Sumo.

I wish I could share your guarded optimism or all your views, but on certain things we shall just have to agree to disagree In any event, you have done some really good work for this community and for that you have my respect.

I guess my main concern is that non-CH pet tanks arose because the Devs devised a combat system with inherent deficiences. Nerfing creatures and creature rebalance does nothing to address most of these deficiences - it just makes them all the more obvious to the players. Frustrated players = unsatisafied customer base = less subscribers.

I am hopeful but not necessarily optimistic that the coming combat changes and droid enhancements will address some of these deficiencies for the players; however, these are the same Devs that initially invisioned Droid Engineers as the sole users of the new combat droids analagous to the CH profession (they changed their views when the DEs informed them they were crafters, not combatants, heh). Hence, my less than guarded pessimism on the upcoming changes

What I really believe is that some of the creature changes and rebalance - while needed - came too early to have final judgement passed on them. It is only after ALL the changes to combat (including droids) are fully implemented that we will know where balance truly lies. I just hope that the Devs realize this when they address the current problem of uber-pets and the eventual remedy. If they don't, I fear any remedy could do irreparable harm to this profession for many months to come.