Creature Handler Archive

Thread: Hey SOE, what do these specials really do? Where is the REAL info for this game?

WarWidow
Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:12 am
#1

Hey SOE game experts, where is the real information on the new pet patch 21. Where is all the well thought out info that was presented to the design board before going live? Where is the hard copy knowledge to back your creativity up?

You tested it, right?

You created the code, right?

You made sure things where balanced, right?

You give a rats a$$, right?

SOE, grow a pair and post on this forum for all CHers to see. POST THE REAL information of all these new things. We are not your lab rats.

I've seen 12 year old players post better information and more truth then you so-called experts!

God this is so unprofessional.

Message Edited by WarWidow on 08-05-2005 12:15 PM





Seita: "The Iron Maiden" Loyal Imperial Panzer.
Shadmare: old school Master Creature Handler (semi-retired).

3+ year Scylla veteran (8/03). Vanguard here I come!
Served: LOD/MOD/MODSF/AEDI/DTOS/KV
Electro5
Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:13 am
#2

If your refering to the fact that they should release info on what all the special attacks do and such.... they never have with anything else, and why should they. Its fun to find things for yourself, and if you don't like that then there are already posts here on the CH board that give great info.



Bria - Electro (N) ~ Shadowfire - Hydrolus (R) ~ Sunrunner - Zaxu Trizki (I) ~ Ahazi - Xonoryt (R) ~ Gorath - Geitizo Nimoirist (I) ~ Radiant - Tygran Virfais (N)
Sneev
Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:21 am
#3

Having SOE release all the details right from the start would take the fun out of this new system. I don't mind that people will document it on the forums here, thats useful of course, but I am also overjoyed there are things to be discovered that no one knows at the moment. That is a rare thing in a game like this where you can usually find a complete guide to the most obscure game element on the net.

Bravo to SOE for implementing something new and creative, something that requires some time to analyze and learn, and provides much greater depth to understand. Even when all the specials are documented for all to see, its going to take time and experimentation to find the most effective specials to teach to the most effective pets and I think thats great.

The only thing I wish I had had was more advance warning so I could respec into CH *before* this came live. When I heard about it I changed all my plans and started on a new path to include MCH, but I am only just started on that route



Jhonto - Elder: Architect, Artisan, Chef, Droid Engineer, Merchant, Tailor, Entertainer, Image Designer, Politician, Bounty Hunter, Marksman, TKM, Creature Handler, Ranger, Scout, Doctor, Dancer and Musician
High Plains, Tatooine (3356, 7212), Tarquinas

Jindi Jaw'aqti - Half Bothan/Half Jawa Spy. Regimental Sargeant Major, 15th Stormtrooper Regiment, Ft Palpatine, Lok.
WarWidow
Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:31 am
#4

Sneev, I have been a CH for 2 years. If you think this was god's gift to us, your smoking banana's!

SOE may get an A+ for the idea of this system, but trust me, it was not what loyal veterans where perpared for.

Their are many other bugs that need to be addressed beofre throwing a mindless grind at those who have grind and played already for so long.

After the CU went live, it took my melee toon less then a week to be back at the top of the food chain for warfare and adventure.

Trust me...bust your butt grinding like mad for CH to get those L3 skills...in the end...I bet your pet still gets wasted in PvP by a 1000+ damage player wearing superior armor!





Seita: "The Iron Maiden" Loyal Imperial Panzer.
Shadmare: old school Master Creature Handler (semi-retired).

3+ year Scylla veteran (8/03). Vanguard here I come!
Served: LOD/MOD/MODSF/AEDI/DTOS/KV
PyscoJuggalo
Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:42 am
#5






WarWidow wrote:
Sneev, I have been a CH for 2 years. If you think this was god's gift to us, your smoking banana's!

SOE may get an A+ for the idea of this system, but trust me, it was not what loyal veterans where perpared for.

Their are many other bugs that need to be addressed beofre throwing a mindless grind at those who have grind and played already for so long.

After the CU went live, it took my melee toon less then a week to be back at the top of the food chain for warfare and adventure.

Trust me...bust your butt grinding like mad for CH to get those L3 skills...in the end...I bet your pet still gets wasted in PvP by a 1000+ damage player wearing superior armor!





Not if you have the L3 armor break


I'm not saying it's gonna be easy to make us into PVP competitors, but I do have some ideas on how it can be done.


Also as I have stated before:


Harder Grind = More Nerf Protection




(Yes, this is going to be an insanely hard grind too.Just getting the ability to trian all L3 abilities is gonna be a hard grind. Let alone taking those abilities and putting them into your pets. This is going to be the hardest profession to master, even harder then Jedi and I say that is good. I know you old masters are pissed but remember 2003. CH had power that was easy to get (going 2-2-0-0 CH as I recall) and CH got nerfed back into the stone age. Now we are probably the hardest profession to truely master, so we can have power once again.)



I am the Mad Rifleman, Writer of the Riflenomican. I understand the secrets of the Dark Ancient Developer ones and their Evil. (Maniacal Laughter) He he he he he, Ha ha ha ha ha, Aha ha ha ha!
CM's are like nukes. You have them just incase you need them, but as soon as you start using yours the other guys start using theirs and everything goes to hell-PyschoticChipmunk -The First line of the Riflenomican.
Oikaleek
Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:59 am
#6

I agree with the OP and don't quite understand how the system's fun is determined by not knowing what the abilities do and having to find out for yourself. Other professions don't have to "guess" as to what their special attacks do, why the hell should CH's? I'm a Bounty Hunter. I can look on the tree before I learn something and see what special attack I want to get, it tells me what it does (albeit quite vaguely sometimes) , for instance, I know that Underhand shot is a knockdown just but looking at the tree without even being a bounty hunter.


We have to get lucky and find a pet with a special, then fight , fight , fight , fight , fight with it in order to learn it from them and train another pet that we have also fought fought fought fought fought with just so it CAN learn the ability. All this and we STILL don't know exactly what the ability might do. Sure , some of them are easy. I knew eye gouge was a blind attack before I used it, but what the heck does Cowering Vigiliance do eh? Is it useful at all? Would it be worth my time to grind up a pet that has it, so that I could learn it and teach it to other pets that I have ground up? Now, I KNOW what it does because I have a pet with it and have learned it already, I also know that it is next to useless. Woohoo, my pet goes into a defensive stance (ala EQ) when it gets low on health. It still gets incapped real quick, ie the "special" isn't all that great, so why bother learning it? Had I had a description of what it did, with a % of the defense modified, I could have likely been able to tell that it was useless from the get go and wouldn't have bothered with that special nor that pet. I would have moved on to something else with something useful.


The new system is either fun or it isn't. Personally, I think it is fun and am enjoying it alot so far. But descriptions of what the different abilities do, official descriptions mind you, I feel are totally necessary. Other profs get them and DONT have to level up their weapon. We don't get them and on top of it DO have to level up our weapons.


Epsilon125
Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:03 am
#7



WarWidow wrote:
Hey SOE game experts, where is the real information on the new pet patch 21. Where is all the well thought out info that was presented to the design board before going live? Where is the hard copy knowledge to back your creativity up?

You tested it, right?

You created the code, right?

You made sure things where balanced, right?

You give a rats a$$, right?

SOE, grow a pair and post on this forum for all CHers to see. POST THE REAL information of all these new things. We are not your lab rats.

I've seen 12 year old players post better information and more truth then you so-called experts!

God this is so unprofessional.

Message Edited by WarWidow on 08-05-2005 12:15 PM





Now that some of the others have left, it seems we have someone trying to appoint himself the new resident troll of the CH forum.

Grow up little boy. The only acting 12 year old around here seems to be you.
Sneev
Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:51 am
#8



WarWidow wrote:
Sneev, I have been a CH for 2 years. If you think this was god's gift to us, your smoking banana's!

SOE may get an A+ for the idea of this system, but trust me, it was not what loyal veterans where perpared for.

Their are many other bugs that need to be addressed beofre throwing a mindless grind at those who have grind and played already for so long.

After the CU went live, it took my melee toon less then a week to be back at the top of the food chain for warfare and adventure.

Trust me...bust your butt grinding like mad for CH to get those L3 skills...in the end...I bet your pet still gets wasted in PvP by a 1000+ damage player wearing superior armor!




Look, I am sorry if this is a pain to you who are a veteran of the CH profession. To my mind that is a separate issue - you should be lobbying to have your existing pets be set at maximum experience or something so that all you have to do is go learn the new abilities so you can teach your existing pets those abilities.

Overall, I think this new design will reinvigorate interest in Creature Handler and make newbies think it might be interesting as a profession, and that can only be a good thing. It may not have been what the existing CH playerbase asked for, and thats too bad, but its up to the designers how they want to implement things and I think it looks like they have done a good job of making the profession more involved and more interesting. This is a way of introducing (I think) badly needed improvements to pets across the board, but one that lets the players choose which improvements they want to have, and lets pets be further differentiated by their training. It means that individual CHs can specialize in particular types of pets with particular abilities and be different from other CHs as well. Oh sure, eventually you will know everything but for a long time, what you choose to learn will mark you apart from the rest of your own profession. You will be to some degree Unique amongst CHs, and what other profession can say that? None. They have also returned some value to taming wild pets, since they are the only source of these new abilities, whereas formerly it seemed your best bet was always to go see a BE and get your Rancor-In-A-Bottle from them, wild pets were substandard. While you may still get a BE pet now for other reasons, you will at least need to go tame some wild pets to learn the skills you want to teach your newly brewed pet at least.

As for PvP I could care less, its both boring and pointless to me, so that doesn't affect me personally. Whether or not the new pets are effective in PvP for other people is still a balance issue, and from what I understand that problem exists already, since I seldom see a CH amongst the losers dueling endlessly in the Mining Outpost. Perhaps, this offers a chance to redress that imbalance if you are focused and dedicated enough to pursue getting and training the most effective pet and abilities. It seems to me (although its early to tell of course) that this only has the potential to make all pets better, not worse.

Besides, NOTHING says you have to play. You presumably have your pets already, just continue to use them. They didn't get any worse did they? I understood they were unchanged (other than the loss of the Elites, like Narglatches). If you don't want to bother leveling up your pets or learning new abilities for them - don't. I am sure the new folks will enjoy this aspect of the new system but you are not forced to. In fact I bet even Narglatches trained with the right new abilities won't be a complete loss, even if they aren't as tough as they used to be.

Now the new system is much more grindy, and I dislike that part immensely. SOEs response to any problem seems to be to increase the grind. Need more content - increase grinding. Need better balance between classes - increase the grinding. People want to be Jedi - ok, make it easier to get started, but increase the grinding. Make improvements to CH - yes, neat ones in fact, but lets increase the grinding to be safe.

I don't think they have realized that any game that encourages players to endlessly grind the same mobs again and again because there is a clear advantage to doing so, is a game that is "boring". SOEs subscriptons must be down to we remaining few who are willing to endure the grind for the sake of the vision of the game in our heads (not the reality we play). So while I applaud SOE for the changes to CH which I only see as positive in most regards, the need for a lot more grinding is annoying to say the least. If they want to retain more subscribers with each new expansion, they need to ensure the game is more enjoyable overall. I think these changes to CH will add to the fun of the class to some degree. It may not be so much fun if you are already at MCH and now feel like you have been reduced to newbie status I grant you. But for the rest of the people trying it out, I think it looks more enjoyable than CH was before. I fail to see how that can be a bad thing on the grand scale.



Jhonto - Elder: Architect, Artisan, Chef, Droid Engineer, Merchant, Tailor, Entertainer, Image Designer, Politician, Bounty Hunter, Marksman, TKM, Creature Handler, Ranger, Scout, Doctor, Dancer and Musician
High Plains, Tatooine (3356, 7212), Tarquinas

Jindi Jaw'aqti - Half Bothan/Half Jawa Spy. Regimental Sargeant Major, 15th Stormtrooper Regiment, Ft Palpatine, Lok.
Sneev
Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:03 am
#9

Ah I read elsewhere that your existing pets have lost their Specials that they orginally had. If thats the case then I agree it sucks badly. To my mind your existing pets should be changed to be at their maximum experience - or you should at least have the option to select some of them to raise to max experience and training slots. As well, you should be give the ability to train in the Special Abilities that most closely match those your pets used to have. I think that would go a long way towards silencing some of the grumbling from the veteran MCHs.



Jhonto - Elder: Architect, Artisan, Chef, Droid Engineer, Merchant, Tailor, Entertainer, Image Designer, Politician, Bounty Hunter, Marksman, TKM, Creature Handler, Ranger, Scout, Doctor, Dancer and Musician
High Plains, Tatooine (3356, 7212), Tarquinas

Jindi Jaw'aqti - Half Bothan/Half Jawa Spy. Regimental Sargeant Major, 15th Stormtrooper Regiment, Ft Palpatine, Lok.
Seiryuu
Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:04 pm
#10

Yes, existing pets lost all their specials with the CU (assuming your pets remained usable). Many of the unhappy posts revolve around that fact.



-----
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Indene
Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:07 pm
#11






Electro5 wrote:
If your refering to the fact that they should release info on what all the special attacks do and such.... they never have with anything else, and why should they. Its fun to find things for yourself, and if you don't like that then there are already posts here on the CH board that give great info.





And if we don't know how it is supposed to work we can't tell if it is broken. Very handy that, for them.


-Indene-






Master Creature Handler - Kettemoor Nov 2003, Radiant Nov 13, 2005
http://www.swgcreatures.com/forums/phpbb2/index.php
Once Happy contented successful Master Merchant. (RiverBend, Naboo.)
Then came the dark times. The NGE
"its as if i heard a million pets cry out in terror...and they were suddenly silenced...i feel a great disturbance in the force"
We're the few, the proud, the Creature Handlers.
Creature Handler Memorial at -1419 283 Mos Mesric, Tatooine, Kettemoor
BE and CH museum at 6627 5365 Tatooine, Chimaera
Find me on MySpace
PyscoJuggalo
Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:28 pm
#12






Indene wrote:






Electro5 wrote:
If your refering to the fact that they should release info on what all the special attacks do and such.... they never have with anything else, and why should they. Its fun to find things for yourself, and if you don't like that then there are already posts here on the CH board that give great info.





And if we don't know how it is supposed to work we can't tell if it is broken. Very handy that, for them.


-Indene-









Shhh........... that's a secret............





I am the Mad Rifleman, Writer of the Riflenomican. I understand the secrets of the Dark Ancient Developer ones and their Evil. (Maniacal Laughter) He he he he he, Ha ha ha ha ha, Aha ha ha ha!
CM's are like nukes. You have them just incase you need them, but as soon as you start using yours the other guys start using theirs and everything goes to hell-PyschoticChipmunk -The First line of the Riflenomican.
spreadsheet
Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:40 pm
#13

Oh all my pets still had their specials post CU...of course none of them worked! I grabbed up 11 babies last night. 4 of them had specials. Not bad. Im working them like crazy. I was only able to play about 2 hours maybe an hour with 3 pets out (1 pet had a dup special, let that 1 go) I got 1 to lvl. The other 2 are about half way to the first lvl. This is going to be tuff but.....I do kinda like it. It is new and it is nice to hunt babies again. My Main gripe is that my existing pets that all had specials before are not able to learn the new specials. My only request was that existing pets be fully matured (as long as they were full grown) Why would this not be fair. We would still have to find the new specials and lvl the pets. It would still take a very long time to get all the specials and learn them. But please, let me train them to my existing, full grown, battle hardened, gimped by the CU pets.






=SIVART SMADA= ~ANNAED SMADA~
-Elder Jedi--Elder Medic-
DWORKIN = Officer
!Master Creature Handler Forever!


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