Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Top Five Issues with the Creature Handler Profession
I'd like more storage.. Just got really into CH and almost to master now. A few days ago I got a droid for storage and then 2 days later, BANG! No more storage.. Pets stuck.. got them out though...
I think that MCH just does not have enough advantages, so here are some ideas.
1. Only MCH can sell pets on vendors, they must be trained in all commands and lv.15 or less. This will not hurt BE they can not sell trained pets to non-ch any way.
2. Only MCH should be able to train the mount creature command when it becomes usable.
3. More storage, or be able to build a barn that has a built in vendor system to store and sell pets.
4. The pet emp. skills should also include pet healing skills, and to use a pet stim above petstim-A you would need to build this skill.
5. Non-ch should be limited to petstim-A
6. Oh anyone should be able to use standard stim-A, you should not have to be a novice medic. I am a doctor on another server and it at least would give the medics something to sell for steady income. Right now people that would buy your stims can just make them. This would also stop 80% of people from holding novice medic and make the real medics alot more valuable.
7. When you pets are grouped you creature harvest gets devided down, even know you pets can not harvest.
8. When a pet is trained with a full cammand set via MCH its level should drop by 5 or it should loose its aggresive status.
9. I do not understand why you need a camp to call a pet, all I get done doing is dropping camps an then leaving them? If you want to just slow us down with mindless camp building thats ok, but if you are tring to control how fast we call pets make it so that when you store a pet it can not be re-called for like 2 minutes or so.
I am almost a MCH right now but I am holding alot of my marksmen skills because if MCH stays lame then I will move to commando in a week or so and just keep enough CH to be dangerus.
Hmm, can I ask for just one thing, faster pet regen! Anything to make a pet regen faster. It takes ages even for a GSP to regen that I'm worried even imagining how long it'll take tougher pets to regen. A neat idea if you want people to regen differently is to add in different rates of regen depending how far up you are on the CH line (best place to add it is probably empathy as it is arguably the least useful CH line). This would mean the pets of Master CHs will regen faster than novices...which makes sense as masters are more likely to use pets with more HAM thus need the faster regens. Heck, it might even make being a master something more useful.
Just the only thing Ithink that could be addedthat's not on your prelim list Vertexon!
NON-CH SHOULD NOT HAVE PETS. This is completely lame and I just want to add my voice to the hundreds of others I have seen posted here. Three important reasons why this is bad, among others are:
1. It is simply not Star Wars for everyone to be running around with trained attack animals. Come on devs!
2. People should instead be running around with trained attack DROIDS and the "everyone gets a pet" thing makes DE's that much more useless.
3. It takes away from the uniqueness of the CH profession that everyone gets to be a Novice CH for free. So, can I please have novice Bounty Hunter for free? Those scatter pistols do look really kewl......
Just my 2 cents.
I dont see anything about raising the cap, unless it falls under the more power point.
Raising the cap is in about 80% of the posts here, yet you dont acknoweledge it.
"b) Make our pets count towards the difficulty of missions (so we are more usefull in groups to pick higher level missions and can make decent money even if we dont have a high end combat class skills - aka dabble into Pistoleer just to get something above difficulty 10 on starter planets)" ((sorry haven't figured out how to do quotes yet but this is a quote))
I was heading toward Pistoleer/Doctor. Didn't like the harvester issues when trying to make the best of the best in stimspaks. I got a non CH pet and discovered I really like this profession and I like the Scout/Ranger profession. Okay, so I found what I like to play and my professions when worked to final conclusion will be, Master Medic, Master Scout, Master Ranger and Master Creature Handler. In none of these professions is there any provison for a weapon. That's okay, I want CH so I can command pets to eliminate my foes as best possible and I'm talking mostly PVE here. I haven't dabbled into PVP yet so excuse the ignorance there, please.
As I gain boxes in CH I lose boxes in Pistoleer. I notice the non facion mission levels are going down. Currently I am at 11, down from 18 on Naboo. At this rate I will be down to level 5 missions at master profession level and high end pets. I had assumed which was not a good idea, that the higher level the pet I used the better mission I would get. That is not the case. The mission terminal levels appear to be based on weapon skills only.
What makes this comical and in a sad way is this, when I was killing things with Pistoleer skills and a pet helping out, I was getting around 150 points of XP per kill for CH along with my other point gains. Now that I am solely using my pet, and I can only use one at this time, I can get up to 79 points of CH xp. Shouldn't It be the other way around? These figures are based on Non faction Mission Terminals as a solo player.
When I run with my guild I get much better of course because I'm working off their weapon skills and not mine. I am the healer on those runs and my pet is my guard during that time. However, I solo a lot. I scout and makes tents and traps which means I need to gather hides and bones to do so or I need a way to earn credits to buy the items I need. It is taxing enough to buy the items I need for stimpaks without adding the extra burden of buying supplies I am supposed to be able to harvest. The lower level missions do not cover cost as it is and I have to use those resources I harvest off creatures, I can't really sell them. With the amount you get per kill lowered because everyone can harvest from the same creature (which is a good thing), I don't get enough to use and to sell and I can't get higher paying missions to make up the difference.
I hope all that made sense! <chuckles>
Make my Giant Crystal Snake faster so it can keep up with me!!
I think ALL pets should be able to keep up with their master, walk, run, burst, whatever... and taking in to account terrain negotiation too!
Probably the biggest issue is the control_level being capped at 70.
I would much rather find ways of enhancing the CH profession which do not involve increasing your ability to destroy things. e.g. Giving you the ability to train and sell pets to non-CH's, and so on. Really open to ideas, here.
Here I think the CH Dev is not looking at the whole picture. Like an imperial with 3 At-St faction pets. At MCH there should be rare uber pets that may be able to stand up to an AT-ST. I also think that the max pet damage level per person should include faction pets (so we can't use 3 rancors but we can use 3 AT-St with one shot to kill any person.)However if they are really intrested in making CH better w/o making them stronger, I would suggest being able to train pets in special moves. for instance certian pets may have the optionto have 1 of 5 special moves. A good CH could train them in one of these moves. BE wouldn't have to worry cause thier list ofcloned pets special moves would still most likley be better.Ok so I know that would never happen ,I suppose the code thier would be a nightmare.
The main issue I have is pet's stop following orders for no reason. A new battle starts and surprise, your pet no longer is listing to you.
It is very difficult for a new CH going up the skill tree to have any clue about what tey can tame and what they can't what they can use and what they can't use. it would be nice to be able to see an creatures challange number in the examine window, as well listed in the skill mods, creatures 1-25,
Also possibly it would be nice if a CH could train skills that would make a pet bettter at humaniods, or better aginst other creatures, it could be atime based skill thing, for instance - You begin training your pet in Humanoid battle - after a long period of time - Your pet has now mastered Humaniod battle.
Thanks,
A Fan
Pets are still ignoring me during combat, I cannot make them change targets without telling them to heel or stay then attack sometimes. Other times it seems I can force them to change targets.
For some reason, after the latest "fix" I have to right click my pets between 3 and 10 times just to get the call option to appear. I asked around and some of the other CHs were having the same problem.
I still would like the ability to retire my pets into BE like pet deeds so that I don't have to destroy them to make space.
My pets are still jumping back into the datapad at the worst times. It wouldn't be so bad if it was going to save my pet from a DB and vitality loss, but when my pet is protecting me from a Mountain Squill that just decided to warp over 100m to attack me (and my pet is winning)?
Probably the biggest issue is the control_level being capped at 70.
I would much rather find ways of enhancing the CH profession which do not involve increasing your ability to destroy things. e.g. Giving you the ability to train and sell pets to non-CH's, and so on. Really open to ideas, here.
Take away the Dev's drugs. They're obviously taking too many of them and need to cut back a little. If I am forced to take a secondary combat class to keep up with other elite combat classes then they were obviously stoned when making decisions regarding us.
They've given everyone but CHs increased ability to destroy things. They've decreased it even by penalizing us in both Faction Point Gains, lootingand Harvesting (not necesserily weakening us, but still an issue). If we could gain FP as fast as everyone else then we could get faction pets just as easily. Admittedly a Rancor + an AT-ST (or 2) might be too powerful, but seriously... I don't think the Rancor would make that much of a difference in that situation. I would be MORE than happy to give up ALL of my combat skills if they would bring back our power to destroy things to be on par with the other elite combat classes. Make MCH cost more SP or make it so you can't have an elite combat class stack with CH, but sweet jeebus quit crippling us.
So awesome I had to quote it in a place that would hopefully get it to the devs. It's creative and simple, ought to sell quick to them. 
Ypiana wrote:
Heya:
Non-CH here but I like the animals and have an idea after watching my animals in real life (I have two Beagles, Challenge Level 1, attack spd 2.0, 1 - 3, .4 rate, Specials: Intimidating Howl, Lightning-Fast Food Snatch)
These dogs spend a lot of free time mock-fighting. They get into it so heavy that sometimes I think they're actually trying to kill each other, but then in the middle of the fight of their lives, they'll just get up and go get a drink of water, tails wagging.
Currently, you have to heal your animal's mind through tricks. These tricks get boring quick for the player and observers.
How about this to heal their mind pool and just for fun: If you can wield two animals, you target one on the other and command them to 'play.'
They then engage in a fight where they deal no damage to each other. This heals their mind pools.
Two CH's, or handlers who can call only one pet at a time, can make each other's pets play with one another when both CHs target their friends pet and command his own to play. This way no one would have their pet playing with another pet if they didn't want to.
Playing would heal the creature's mind just like having them do tricks does, except it doesn't dump the handler's mind pool.
Not only would this be cool to watch, but it would add more depth to CH. It would only take a few changes to implement, too.
So if you guys like this idea, push it to your correspondent and up to the devs. I think it would be an easy change that would make the profession more interesting and fun.
Ypiana
Master Ranger
First of all, I'd like to praise you for attempting to address these issues. They are paramount to the CH profession being a fun class to play. Mechanics aside, if the class is so irritating to play, it is not fun. Several times a day, I ponder surrendering CH and go into something else, or simply cancel my account and come back in a couple months. Neither of which I want to do.
In recent days of patches, there are several bugs that have been introduced.
1) (Old bug) Pets warping to 5k away, and being dead when they are recalled. Or, warping to data pad. Always at the worst of times. This is a very serious problem. Our pets are our weapons. If a BH or Pistoleer's weapons warped into a datapad or unequipped in the middle of a fight, there would be a hot fix, and a million crys for it. I can only assume the problem is difficult to fix, or it would be fixed. Nevertheless, it happens to me several times a day, and it the most frusterating thing I encounter. This problem defines us as broken, for if it were happening to any other class, it would render them broken and useless. Granted we have our own weapons, but with the level of missions we do, if our tank disappears, we are toast. I can't count how many deaths this has caused me.
2) The radial to call a pet needs to be clicked several times before the call command appears.
3) The guard command has been forgotten by all my pets. As well, once I retrain them, store, and call again, they forget the command again.
4) Wedge and column are broken, they do not seem to work at all. As well, the pets appear to have forgotten this command.
5) Pets not healing in datapad overnight when player is not logged on.
Furthermore, what bothers me the most is the imperial faction pet AT-ST that is CL125. A few days grinding FP can purchase this pet for any imp, without them having to use up spec points. On top of that, they can call 3 of them at once. There is no equivelent rebel pet, or counter measure available as a faction perk. Any smart imp becomes invincible when they call one or more of these things. They only need be careful that no commandos are near by, and they can solo and entire town like Moenia. I feel strongly that no player should be able to call a pet higher than a MCH. Plenty of threads on this subject, I don't need to elaborate more.
As for training and selling non-ch pets, I have completely given up on that as an income. I don't have room in my datapad to do this. I need to rotate out my collection of pets because they heal too slow, and the mobs always go for the weaker one. Every mission run I go one basically wastes one pet, and I need to call another.
This never used to be a problem when medics got xp for healing my pet. I'd roll into town, and someone would heal my pet before I had two more missions qued up. Now, I have to beg, and offer to pay 1000+ credits to get it healed. I have to do this when I run out of pets to rotate.
Therefore, I would suggest several adjustments to be made.
1) Give xp back for healing other people's pets. Or, increase their healing in the datapad significantly. Or, give us more room in the datapad for a bigger inventory to rotate pets out.
2) Adjust the mob AI so that it mostly hits the larger of the tank pets. This would prolong the time needed before rotating a pet out. However, it would mean the higher ham pet gets rotated more often, and takes longer to heal; there would still be a need to adjust healing time.
3) Allow droids to store pets again, so that we may keep an inventory to sell non-ch pets. However, limit the number of pets to 4-8 depending on the quality of the crafter/droid. Also, limit the pets that are stored in the droid to be CL15 or less. It would be nice to be able to call these pets directly from the droid, in order to avoid the full datapad problem. This would be a fair compromise, and allow us to once again enter the pet selling market.
4) Perhaps add skill tapes that increase the CL ability. Just another CL5 would be very valuable. Make them drop from epic sized spwans only, where a large group is needed to fight.
5) In order to further enhance the non-ch pet market, I would really like to see non-combatant classes allowed to have CL17, or CL20 pets. Lord knows they need the help. So a master dancer or entertainer would be flagged to allow for a higher lvl non-ch pet, more interesting pets, more useful for when they do combat. It would broaden the market, and allow us CH to tame harder to find and more interesting pets for them. Also, the possibility of the above skill tapes could be included for non-ch to use, allowing them up to 5 more CL.
I want to be able to call my pet during combat - is it unfair for me to want to do so?
My pets are weapons, an option to fight with, just as a gun or special move. I can chooseeither of the latter two while fighting, why not a pet? Make "call" a battle command.