Creature Handler Archive

I've been giving the CH some thoughts in my week back in the game. Perhaps my perspective is different than many others who have been here through all the stuff that's happened in the last 9 months while I was away, but here goes.

When I played last, you could have 3 high level pets (any level you could tame, there was no CL cap), equal to their wilderness counterparts (not gimped like tamed pets) and hunt with them until they got killed or incapped, store them in the datapad and pull them out again in a camp and they'd be at 100% health and ready to go. That was obviously an extreme case of "easy button". The "fix" that was put in place was equally extreme in the opposite direction. Now we we can have one gimped pet that can't compete with any combat class, has pet vitality, takes forever to heal (and a million pet stims), and we still have no market in the SWG world. Most of the bugs from when the game launched are still in the game for the CH.

We all have our own idea of what we'd like to see changed in the CH profession. Here's mine:


Combat Changes:

- Tamed pets should be as strong as their wild counterparts. We went from having 3 full strength pets to 1 gimped pet. In the process, players obtained buffs, better armor, and mastered their skills. In essense, the player to creature combat effectiveness seems reversed from what it was a year ago.

- Pet armor / power shields, to protect pets against one type of attack. Our choice, we buy the armor / shields for the type of defense we want (kinetic, blast, lightsaber, etc) from armorsmiths (Master CH's only to eliminate dabblers with over effective pets)

- Pet weapon harnesses: Spikes that act as a damage shield when hit (damages the attacker), or blades that do additional dmg when the pet attacks. (purchased from weaponsmith). Only 1 device may be mounted on the pet at a time. (Master CH's only to eliminate dabblers with over effective pets)

- Store / call timer changes. It takes 75 seconds to store a high level pet that was just in combat and call another one. It takes 5 seconds for a player to change weapons. This obviously needs to be lowered for the CH. Possibly lower the timer based on the CH's skill level.

- Pets should be able to be buffed so they are a lot more effective in battle than their wild counterparts, the same way players get buffed up. This would be administered by Bio Engineers and work like doctor buffs, making pets able to compete in combat.

- I personally have mixed feelings about pet vitality. It makes me very skiddish to use most of the pets in my arsenal in situations where they might get killed, and this is even harder for a collector who has a lot of rare / extinct pets. I can see wanting to have a limit on the lifespan of a "weapon", but a player can buy a weapon from a store any time they want. Pets have to be tamed, which is dangerous and very time consuming, then they have to be raised which takes a week. Factor in our limited pet storage and the fact that a lot of our datapads are full of rares / extincts, and it really hinders our ability to use the pets we worked so hard to get and raise without fear of losing them.

- Pet stims need to be more effective. Maybe I'm just not using the right stim packs, and this could be an issue of me being inexperienced, but I asked a master BE for the best pet stim packs that I could use and he gave me some Pet Stim A's that heal for about 500ish. My pets have 11,000 health. It's easier just to switch pets and let them heal in the datapad overnight.

The Creature Handler economy (not all CH's want to live in tents and bathe in Endor rivers forever, we need some more money making avenues to pay for the gear mentioned above):

- Zoos should be added, purchased from architects and placed in cities, or placed in real cities like Theed for a fee, and you'd get a weekly royalty based on profits. Zoos can show off our pets and free up space in the datapads. Adding rares to the game was one of the things I like most about my CH upon my return to the game, but if you're a successful collector, you don't have much room left to store combat pets or train mounts. Player zoos could charge players to visit, to help raise money for the owner or the city, and have terminals where CH's could write a story and give stats on the creatures.

- Mountable cats, that are at least as fast as speeders, but not swoop bikes. This would give us the option of using a mount we'd really want to go somewhere on without having to pay the maintenance fees of a swoop bike and pollute the environment, and without killing the swoop bike market since they'd still be faster.

- MULES! Let CH's tame creatures to act as mules, storing items like resources in their saddlebags. These animals, due to their hard lifespan, would have the life expectancy of about a month or two (real time) to keep the market flowing.

Taming:

- All creatures equal to our creature level cap (currently 70) or under should have a chance to spawn pets. The higher level the creature, the more rare the babies.

And finally:

- Devs, be involved more in the forums and the CH community. It seems pretty obvious with only one glance on the forums that the CH community is disgruntled and feels detached from the developers, citing in many posts the lack of Dev feedback and community involvement. A little TLC would go a long way. How about a Friday Feedback post, a weekly "state of the profession" letting us know you hear our concerns and let us know what's going on behind the scenes?

- Bug Fixes, all of them. Warping, going back into the datapad, running sideways, getting stuck on ant hills, still taking vitality in PVP, etc. Most of these bugs have been in the game since the game launched, and were on the list of things to fix back when I left the game 9 months ago.

I'm sure I'll think of more stuff after I hit Submit Post, but that's all I can think of right off. Feel free to share you thoughts and suggestions below.

-Fubuki

I like the MULE IDEA!!

Message Edited by SnoozMcBlues on 07-09-2004 12:26 AM

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SnoozMcBlues wrote:

goto a different bio-engineer for your stims,i have some stim c's which heal 970, and if i recall correctly i had some stim D's a few months ago that healed well over a 1000 for each heal...

some nice ideas there aswell - good effort mate

Message Edited by SnoozMcBlues on 07-09-2004 12:26 AM

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BlindTyldak wrote:

The problem as I understand it is that the resources needed for the high-end pet stims are very expensive. I've actually done much better by using normal Stim-B's and having my pets do a lot of tricks. It's 15 SP, but I think its worth it.

I'd add one more thing to the list . . . a reason to keep your pet around. Have them gain something for each RT month in your datapad, or at the very least something for its two month birthday. Make aged pets, our REAL companions, worth something. I'd proposed, for example, just a simple graphical change for banthas; another horn curl. Just this little bit would make them a bit rarer and more valuble as a collector's item, increasing a sale market for CH's. Add that to the zoo or other pet storage idea and it would be a good combo. For mounts they could get an increase in speed, and for combat animals an increase in damage and evasion.

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Hey that'sa neat idea. Man, my Giant Pekowould be a grand olde bird by now ^_^ (along with my Spineflap Queen and other really really old pets I have )

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Vertexon wrote:

Nice list. I think almost all of that is already on our Issue/Request list (pet wearables, pack animals, everything CL 70 and under tamable, more pet storage, more mounts, and of course the big bug fixes).

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Heh, leave it to me to be late to the party.

Thanks for the feedback about the stimpacks, I'll look for some other types and see how much they cost. I like the idea about changing the appearance of older pets too.

I was also thinking since the zoo idea might be hard to impliment, having a building in each major city like the parking garage we could go to and store our pets like a stable. Pay a certain amount each week deducted from our bank accounts for each pet, and have it work like a bank, where we could store and retrieve the pets from different cities.

Thanks for the welcome back, btw. Good to be back.
-Fub