Bio Engineer Archive

BioEngineer State of the Profession - September
2004.

Overview

Economic Status

Issues

Old Issues

Cloning

• Bug: We were told full-grown size will vary
  greatly depending on the final stats, this does not appear to be working
  correctly.

The size is only dependant on current level vs
max level, a CL 10 durni when fully grown is the exact same size as a CL 70
durni. The ability to control the size or have it based on the final CL of the
creature is highly desired, in particular it would make more use of some of the
larger creatures if their size could be modified to indicate their low level.
Extremely large pets, such as rancors, grauls and kimogillas are not desirable
in most situations.

• Bug: Certain attacks, namely AOE attacks
  will not transfer to the clone.

The thought is that this is by design, but we
would appreciate official word on this.

• Gameplay: Diversity - While the revamp to
  cloning has greatly improved this, there is still the desire for more
  skins.

In particular there are no snake or flier skins
and only 1 primate, additionally most skins go unused as cat skins are most
desirable for their swift movement speed, this allows them to keep up with
vehicles and also reach their attack target faster. Most of the skins we can
currently craft have little value other than novelty because of their slow
movement speed.

• Gameplay: Colors do not always stay once a
  clone is tamed

Langlatch, Kima, Fambaa, Rancor, Ronto, Bearded Jax
and Veermok do not retain the colour given to them in the crafting process once
tamed.

• Gameplay: Currently, once a clone is tamed,
  it no longer retains the creator's mark. A BE'd pet should display who made
  it as well as the owner

All other crafted goods retain the maker's mark
to identify the crafter and is an advertisement to anyone who sees it. BE's
would like to have this perk with our pets.

• Gameplay: Documentation, no documentation
  was ever release with the cloning revamp

The advanced BE guide was written by the community
and contains out of date information as well as errors. Some official
documentation on our systems would be greatly appreciated.

• Gameplay: Why isn't CL it listed on the
  Generic DNA Template?

It is difficult to gauge
whether a dna template is going to yield the desired CL on the final clone.

DNA Sampling

• Gameplay: Once we sample a creature to
  death, we can no longer harvest resources from the corpse.

Given the need for meat, we would like to
be able to harvest from creatures we've killed in this fashion. Even the
easiest of meats to collect can sell for 40cpu while its in spawn, being able to
use our scout skills to harvest corpses of creatures we have killed would go a
little way towards improving our economic standing.

• Gameplay: Why does our DNA sampling now
  seem to cap at CL 75 when we used to be able to sample from anything in the
  game?

This is also another big issue for the
profession. A sample cap of 75 means there is no diversity in MCH level
pets. Its also a contributing factor towards the issue of a CL35 pet
having nearly every desirable quality, and there being little point crafting
pets above this level.

At lower levels it is possible to make a choice between tanking ability or
damage, at the top end there is no choice to be made, since we cannot sample
much higher than the max level we can craft we cannot trade off one attribute
for another, because although the templates could have room to be dropped in one
area and boosted in another, the DNA is not available for this to be possible.

• Gameplay: CL is missing from DNA Samples

Every other creature attribute is present on the
DNA samples, the CL is a valuable piece of information that is missing.

• Development Request: Storage - Storage is
  still an issue

DNA storage is still a HUGE issue for us. I have
submitted a proposal on this issue.

Tissues

• Bug: Quality of BEC/ABEC and LS/ALS have no
  effect on the quality of Pet Vitality
  Medpacks

Was this intentional? If so, why?

• Gameplay: Resource availability

Although attempts have been made to increase the yield
of fish, eggs and mollusks, the quantities they can be gathered in are still far
too low. In the case of eggs, the yield of jars of living creatures is too high
and creates unnecessary inventory clutter. Although they can be mildly
entertaining, most are destroyed and I feel that important resources should have
a higher priority.

General

• Gameplay: Skill tapes - there are currently
  looted skill tapes for every crafting profession except BE.

All other crafting professions have skill
enhancements as well as questable schematics. We would like the same opportunities
to enhance our skills as other professions.

New Issues

Cloning

• Bug, Pet validity checks are not
  working as intended, it is still possible
  to create overpowered pets that are valid and underpowered pets that
  are invalid.

This is one of the biggest gripes with the new
cloning system (implemented 9 months ago!!!) and is a big game breaker for us,
as well as causing tensions in the community over the ethics of selling pets you
know to be wrong for their assigned CL. Add to that the frustration of creating
new recipes only to have them declare 'invalid', particularly in the case of new
BE's making mediocre or underpowered pets, it is very off putting and has caused
many players to quit the profession.

• Gameplay, There are no BE specific
  assembly bonuses, meaning BE's have
  no way to reduce their crit fail rate

DNA is hard to get and dangerous. That's
ok, but losing a days work on a random 5% chance and there's nothing you can do
about it, can bring a grown man to tears - not fun

• Gameplay, certain skins have minimum
  levels, it would be useful for this to be reflected in the crafting UI

Not everyone reads the forums, and they certainly
shouldn't have to, information like this is very important in cloning,
particularly when the CL is not shown on the DNA template. The aggression levels
would also be useful as aggressive creatures cannot be tamed by non-ch even if
they are CL10.

• Gameplay, previous to the revamp
  critical fails returned DNA, this is no longer the case.

Why was this feature removed from our crafting
process? Many BE's feel that our DNA is just as valuable, if not more valuable
than the resources returned to architects on a crit fail and do not understand
why this was taken away from us.

When compared to a mined resource, which only takes time (not required to even
be in game time) and minimal credits to obtain, the loss of DNA and DNA
templates which may be several generations deep (and all unique) is far more
devastating.

DNA Sampling

• Bug: DNA sampling can cause a covert
  factioned BE to be teffed

If a covert factioned BE DNA samples a creature
that aggros an overt of the opposing faction, the BE will be teffed and
attackable by any overt member of the opposing faction.

• Gameplay: Failure rate at MBE
  is too high

Experimental data has shown that a MBE fails to
obtain DNA samples from very low level creatures (gnorts) 15% of the
time, we feel this is far too high for supposed Masters of their profession.
Since unavoidable failure seems part of the game design, we feel 5% would be a
far better figure.

At the top end the failure rate is 90% on Mutant Rancors. Given the
difficulty of even approaching a mutant rancor, this figure is extremely high,
though no community consensus has been reached on what the failure rate should
be. IMO this figure would be acceptable at the top end, If that top end
were nearer CL100.

As it is there are very few BE's willing to make high level pets because of the
difficulty in obtaining the necessary DNA.

• Gameplay: Diversity, there is a lack
  of sample-able creatures at the top end.

There are only 3 creatures in game between cl
70-75 and 2 are rare spawns. Mutant Rancor is pretty much the *only* option
for high level DNA. Between the levels of 60-70
there are 5 creatures and 1 is a lair boss.
So there are only realistically 5 creatures to sample between
the levels of 60 and 75. This is a major problem

• Gameplay: Error messages

The error messages for DNA sampling are
inadequate. There is no error message to indicate a creature is too powerful for
you to DNA sample and none for not being able to collect samples due to a full
inventory. In both these cases you will successfully attempt to sample but will
simply return the message 'You fail to obtain a DNA sample".

Tissues

• Bug: The schematics for BE products
  list the experimental attributes
  incorrectly

The experimental attributes are listed as
33 OQ, 33 PE and 33 FL, the correct formula is 50 OQ, 30 PE, 20
FL

• Gameplay: Resource Requirements -
  chef tissues

The non-nutrient chef tissues need re-evaluating,
nutrients are the most desirable chef tissues and are the easiest to make, the
other tissues are not worth the effort to make due to the difficulty in
obtaining large quantities of specific creature resources and the lack of demand
for these tissues.

• Gameplay: Resource Requirements - Tailoring
  Tisses

Tailoring tissues follow the same pattern as chef
tissues, the least in demand tissues have the worst resource requirements, eg.
Eggs for Entertainer tissues and Milk for CH tissues.

• Gameplay: The tissues we have are currently
  underutilised.

There are 12 chef tissues, of which only 3 are
popular sellers. The other 9 are not often asked for and are rarely made for
vendor sale due to the difficult resource requirements. Given the need for
specific resources in these schematics and the lack of demand for them, they are
not profit makers.

Out of the tailor tissues there are only 2 or 3 that are really popular, the
rest do not sell well and are difficult to make because of the low yield
resources requirements (egg, milk, mollusks)

General

• Gameplay, DNA samples do not show the
  creature donor on the inventory listings

This is just as important, if not more than
the quality of the DNA. When crafting a DNA template
the first thing you want to know is the creature donor. Only after that point is
it important what quality the DNA is.

WishList