Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Fanfest News Flash: Event is over with all questions now posted and my final thoughts
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enigma_writer
Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:02 pm
#1
Fellow CH
I am attending Fanfest representing the creature handlers of BEAST, swgcreatures.com, and creature handlers through out SWG. I will work hard to ask questions of developers to get answers for the many issues of our profession. Ko-a has also sent me some emails of issues he would like me to ask about and wont stop until all questions are heard and answered 
At the open forum meeting at 10 am I asked
When will Ch be balanced for the cu?
Answer:
Could not give any specifics to the upcoming publish or even timetable of its release 
Next question asked at the ranged attacks forum:
Ranged attacks and special attacks are broken/ invisible on all pets. What is the time frame for those being addessed.
Answer:
AI is currently broken but the patch to fix thisis now past the development and going to test center shortly. That meanshopefully we will see special attacks returned within the next 2 publishes.
Next Question:
When will pets be balanced with the CU? Asked By DaBudo
Answer
Pets are already balanced
In the CH forum later today am really going to challenge this assumption as right now pets are definitely not balanced with the CU.
Next Question:
Will their be damage caps for low level creatures such as Durni outside of city?
Answer
Outside of city they discussed putting even lower lvls on the creatures including making them non aggro.
Next Question
When will static spawns be fixed?
Answer:
They are currently working on it with NO time frame to getting this fix live.
Next Question- Requested by Ko-a
When Mounted creatures are attacked they both slow down and do not allow the creature handler to attack. Will this be fixed soon?
Answer:
This is working as INTENDED
I spoke with a csr from Lucas Arts about the CH profession and here is what we discussed
When will we be seeing pet specials and resists returned
Next publish
Can you give me any details about the upcoming ch publish
Am generalizing what he said
Pets are now balanced and the upcoming publish will make sure ch is not an overpowered but balanced profession. He viewed pvp as being a very small percentage quoting pvp as being 5% of the overall gamersand that CH really didwas not a pvp combat profession. Like TH said in thebeginning where developers were having trouble defining the role of CH in pvp giving us the Jack of All trades abilities which will be coming in the future ch publish, I still feel from this discussion that thereis still a lot of uncertainty as to what to do with our profession.
Will area attacks such as plague strike still be there?
Hewas unsure only that the specials will bereturned inpub 18
How can Creature Handlers be incorpriated back into pvp?
After i asked this question discussed how pvp was in the very beginning and the intent of swg in all future publishes regarding our profession is to ensure that ch never agains returns to how it was where you could tank with pets. I then brought up how in order to take down a pvp base a Bio engineer is needed, still unsure why a Bio engineer is needed, and suggested that CH could give a pvp bonus to bases such as pets causing all enemy targets in base to suffer accuracy/ defensivepenalties due to a CH and their incoming pets.He liked the ideabut was unsure if that would fit into game as a viable pvp option for CH.
Updated question and answers once Fanfest was over
There is no longer any exceptionally rare or even rare creatures in the game anymore. I used Bull Rancor as an example where the spawn rate was once 1 in 1000 and now you could find one rather easily. I asked if the rare pet system is going to be re-implemented.
Answer:
Dev was unaware that this broken and assumed that they were still spawning at same rates and said would look into fixing it meaning there will still be some exceptional pets that will be hard to find.
Will the Bull Rancor be restored to being the best pet on Dathomir as currently there are several creatures with higher cl then the Bull?
Answer:
He said the Bull Rancor Was still the best pet on Dathomir and hinted that on Kashyyyk there would soon be some new elite creatures added that will be tameable
Will their still be a distinction between wild and bio pets once the professions are fixed.
He replied that there will still be advantages in having bio pets such as being customizable where wild pets will have their own abilities that make them attractive over bio pets. I liked this because I dont want to see all master ch using strictly bio pets.
Other Bio engineer tidbits
DNA sampling will be fixed in pub 18 or 19
Any creature under lvl 75 can still be sampled. Start looking for those Kliknik queens 
These questions were postedby Pickaroon
Will the max level of pet that we can control be increased to CL 80.
Answer: No. After Publish 17, pets should be more powerful, so we shouldn't need pets over CL 80. Dev stated that his CL 60 pet defeated a CL 80 mob. If people still find that their pets are getting defeated too easily, it may be a bug so /bug it or post in this forum so Koa can let Devs know what's going on with our higher level pets.
Pet specials again.
Answer: Again, ranged and pet specials are broken, high priority to get those fixed.
What about pets that are uncalleable because they are now over CL 70, BE & wild?
Answer: Not good news, I'm afraid. The problem is very complex and probably can't be fixed. I think Milteck asked if those pets should be deleted, and the Dev replied it might be a good idea. Though,the new "taming options" should help compensate for having to delete pets.
A follow-up question was later asked if we could "re-deed" those uncalleable pets so that they could be dropped in our houses.
Answer: Devs thought this was a good idea as long as it was understood that those deeds would not be able to be sold to other players. No mention was made about when something like this would be implemented.
Higher level pets (CL 70 for example) are very difficult or impossible to tame, can this be adjusted?
Answer: Taming high level pets is supposed to be very challenging to make it more rewarding when one is tamed. It shouldn't be impossible, though, so Dev will "look at" taming difficulty. Though he seemed to think taming difficulty was where it should be.
Pet speed is too slow, can it be fixed?
Answer: Some AI issues here, but this is being looked at - whatever that means.
A combination of questions about pets going aggro on mobs 80 meters away as well as getting aggroed by mobs even though play has masked scent.
Answer: AI problems with pets going aggro, especially in dungeons. Being "looked at". As far as pets getting aggroed, Dev kind of felt that mask scent should not include pets but will take another look at this. Mounts are the exception. Mounts definitely are included in masked scent (if player is mounted), and if mounts are getting aggroed, it's probably a bug. Will be looked at.
Pets can't hold aggro, can there be some sort of /taunt?
Answer: I didn't write anything down for some reason. Attention deficit disorder, I guess. Tiggs was helping out as a sort of forum/question monitor, and Imust have beenwatching her. She's darn cute. Basically, they said they didn't want the pets to be a "meat shield" like they were pre-CU. And with good tactics, a pet could? hold aggro blah blah blah. That's all I remember.
Why does mount slow down for combat?
Answer: This is outdated feature, and that feature can/should be turned off. No mention of when this would happen. Eventually, they do want to bring back mounted combat, though.
Static spawns don't respawn (affecting taming of certain babies).
Answer: Staticspawning isbroken and is being looked at.
There was discussion about why Devs think pets are "balanced". Again, I didn't follow all of this - probably for same reasons as above. The gist of it was that CH is supposed to have even abilities in everything, not being great or bad at anything. So pets are supposed to be the same blah blah blah.
Actually, if a CL 80 MCH can take on a CL 80 mob using just pets, I might accept that CH is on a par with other combat professions (allowing for afore mentioned bugs/problems that will be fixed). The Devs stated that no one profession should be able to stand alone. That is, if a player wants to be optimally effective in combat, he/she needs to have 2 combat professions. I'm not convinced, yet, that I can take on a CL 80 mob with, say, my CL 66 Rhoa, but we shall see.
There wasn't enough time for all the questions I wanted to ask. However, Spreadsheet passed out a really, really good synopsis, so to speak, of CH issues, ideas, etc. It will still be up to us to make constructive posts here, letting Koa know what we would like to see happen so he can pass those ideas on to the Devs.
Final thoughts
Fanfest was very enjoyable where my fondest memories will be the people that I met from Radiant and other CH here on the forum whom appeared to get answers. I found the devs were very straightforward when it came to addressing bug issues and in all the forums was able to ask the questions Ko-a forwarded to me plus questions which were important to me such as addressing pets no longer being rare. To be honest I was disappointed that the dev responsible for our future publish really didn't give us a first look at what was to come for the profession but did imply there would be new commands to train allowing ch to customize their pets to fill a roll in pvp.
I was also saddened to find that out of all the players who attended fanfest, I could only find 6 players who were currently a creature handler. I would also average that more then half the people in attendance were Jedi or players actively trying to become a Jedi. It appears that not just CH is growing smaller but many other professions such as Doctor, entertainer, and ranger are all becoming a profession that fewer people are mastering. Also did not like that creature handler will not their publish for another 2 months meaning it will be 2 months before all our issues are fixed and profession possibly usable for pvp.
I am optimistic that our publish coming in 2 months will fix our profession and make it balanced with the CU. But if creature handler continues to be a pve only profession with only brave Bounty hunters picking up the profession to hunt Jedi with then feel it wont solve getting CH back out into the Galactic War. If pets get back specials such as disease and poison then that will make ch the only other profession besides Combat medic with dots to use. CH will have to be apart of a solid group to suceed in pvp regardless of how the balancing of our profession goes. Also I would not recommend any Master ch delete any wild pet that is currently not usable as there is still a small chance that they will be usable once again.
Keep up the faith fellow ch!!
Milteck (BEAST)
Message Edited by enigma_writer on 06-03-2005 06:05 PM
Message Edited by enigma_writer on 06-04-2005 11:16 AM
Message Edited by enigma_writer on 06-04-2005 11:18 AM
Message Edited by enigma_writer on 06-04-2005 01:44 PM
Message Edited by enigma_writer on 06-05-2005 05:27 PM
Message Edited by enigma_writer on 06-05-2005 05:33 PM
Message Edited by enigma_writer on 06-05-2005 05:51 PM
Hardley
Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:16 pm
#2
Thanks for the info and please keep us posted here ... any information would be great 
Ko-aIri
Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:37 pm
#3
Thanks for the update Milteck.
Hope you can get some answers to those questions... if you can put together a big Q/A post I'll sticky it.
Wish I were there... /sigh
Hope you can get some answers to those questions... if you can put together a big Q/A post I'll sticky it.
Wish I were there... /sigh
Kitoth
Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:50 pm
#4
Let's see if I can predict the responses you're likely to get at the CH forum:
"We're looking at that issue internally, we will let you know if we decide upon a course of action."
"Unfortunately, we don't have a timetable yet for fixes."
"Some of these will be addressed in the future. We cannot say more on when or how."
"We were not awareof *insert problem here*. We'll have to look at that and get back to you."
"Can you send us more information on *insert CH issue #289 here*? We'll have a look at that once we get back to the home offices."
"Please have your correspondent put together a top 5 list of your issues for us to look at."
And finally..
"What's this forum on? Creature Handlers? There are still Creature Handlers in this game?" *whispers to fellow developer* "Didn't we remove that profession a year ago?"
Hardley
Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:59 pm
#5
We shouldnot guess ...we shouldnot predict ...we should justwait for the reports ... I think it's really cool that enigma_writer is willing to take the time and make the effort to let us know the scoop from Fanfest firsthand
theorb22
Fri Jun 03, 2005 6:46 pm
#7
Yay specials! Makes me wish I hadn't of accidently deleted my 3rd pet in my old trio, it had the 2 specials I would need once specials are fixed, guess i'll have to find some other solution :/. Least I know I can hang on to my other pets though .
.
Ko-aIri
Fri Jun 03, 2005 8:17 pm
#8
I stickied this thread Milteck, at least through the weekend. Thanks for the updates.
Electro5
Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:24 am
#10
Mounts are supposed to be both slowed down and not able to fight either?
I know you've probably got plenty else, but while your challenging the balance, you might want to ask about this again as well. There's no reason they should slow down if you can't fight, vehicles don't. Mounts are basically slower vehicles, they have no advantage except for using them in places on Kashyyyk where you cannot use vehicles.
Ko-aIri
Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:30 am
#11
Working as intended? I'm really going to fight that one... I really don't think they understand what we're saying, there's no way it can be intended that mounts are totally worthless unless galloping.
Hardley
Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:33 am
#12
enigma_writer wrote:
...
CH forum is less then 6 hours away and I will beasking many tough questions and hopefully will get some details of our publish. So farits been hard to get a straight answer from devs but I do know for certain that our publish will not happen until after the smuggler, squad leader,and ranger publishes
Oh man that sounds like a loooooooong time away for a CH publish I guess tho' that one might say "This is working as they INTENDED"
I guess tho' that one might say "This is working as they INTENDED"
theorb22
Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:41 pm
#13
Id sure like to hear their opinion on what the point of creature mounts is besides looking cool then, because if its intended for us tonever use them near ANYTHING thats aggresive, that's a problem.
you know though, BE are still trying to figure out the new system, who knows, once the pets their creating lately grow up we can see if they really do well in PvP :/. Most of the time in PvP my main issue is that my pets just stop dead and do nothing, which of course doesn't let them do any damage, so I don't really know for certain if they do much in PvP :/.
Message Edited by theorb22 on 06-04-2005 02:41 PM
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