Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Publish 7: Major (CH-related) Features
Actually, I DO believe that GTEF is a griefing tactic.
I'm also willing to bet that the GTEF will be removed in the future as well.Coverts should not be able to mix with overts in groups. How it SHOULD work is that only an overt can join a group with other overts, or attacking an overt in a group will not grant a GTEF.
Poison Grenades, rifles, and carbines are WEAPONS. Pets are not. I repeat this same concept over and over and over again because it just doesn't seem to sink in your thick skulls.
My CL27 cat is not my weapon. My rifle is my weapon.
To all the people who are so adamant about describing your pet as your weapon, then let's assume that somehow on the off-chance your pet IS your weapon ... I have never, ever seen any combat class holding two weapons and using them at the same time. If your pet is truly a weapon, then you should be subject to the same restrictions as the other weapon-using classes: meaning you should only be able to use one at a time. If yourpet is out, then you shouldn't be allowed to equip a gun, nor use your unarmed skills if you're a TK. If you want to kill things with your "weapon" then your pet should be the only source of offensive power. We all know this would be unfeasible. Why? BECAUSE YOUR PET IS NOT YOUR WEAPON!
Indene wrote
How does 'insta-calling' pets allow for griefing that 'insta calling' poison grenades or 'insta-calling' a different and much more powerful pistol/rifle/carbine(?) doesn't allow? If you insist on the sceneario that a pet is a 'friend' with a weapon how is 'insta calling' the rest of your group via group-tef NOT a griefing tactic?
And as an convenient additional thought project explain why 'insta calling' pets in the city right now is not creating a lot of griefing scenearios.
-Indene-
To all the people who are so adamant about describing your pet as your weapon, then let's assume that somehow on the off-chance your pet IS your weapon ... I have never, ever seen any combat class holding two weapons and using them at the same time. If your pet is truly a weapon, then you should be subject to the same restrictions as the other weapon-using classes: meaning you should only be able to use one at a time. If your pet is out, then you shouldn't be allowed to equip a gun, nor use your unarmed skills if you're a TK. If you want to kill things with your "weapon" then your pet should be the only source of offensive power. We all know this would be unfeasible. Why? BECAUSE YOUR PET IS NOT YOUR WEAPON!
I accept your proposal. Of course you are going to piss of a lot of Doctors and Combat medics who have to choose between their pistol and their grenades (poison, etc.) And kiss your DOT bye bye if you want to use your rifle.
Oh and the DEVs will love this idea cause they can skip the dual wielding Pistoleer idea. Too much coding anyway.
-Indene-
I think we're on to something.
Let's give-in to all the CH's who insist that their pets are their weapons by allowing them to call and store pets at will, anytime, anywhere, even in combat, just as a commando can swap through weapons instantly. Since commandos cannot fire off a flamer AND a LP at the same time (he can only have one at a time) nor can a combat medic toss poisons and fire off a rifle at the same time, then the CH would have to hold something like a leash or a whip in his hand whenever a creature was out, and if a CH wanted to fire a rifle, he'd have to put the leash away which would automatically store the pet.
Of course, this would totally obliterate a pet's current use as a tank, but hey, it's a WEAPON afterall.
Indene wrote:
I accept your proposal. Of course you are going to piss of a lot of Doctors and Combat medics who have to choose between their pistol and their grenades (poison, etc.) And kiss your DOT bye bye if you want to use your rifle.
Oh and the DEVs will love this idea cause they can skip the dual wielding Pistoleer idea. Too much coding anyway.
-Indene-
DeneziB wrote:
We're not talking about calling apet in a metropolitan area. We're talking about calling a pet in the wilderness.
A jedi is out hunting blurrgs on Endor. I see him. I sneak up to him on my swoop. I jump off the swoop 10 meters away from him. I INSTANTANEOUSLY call my AT-ST out and make a first strike against him by commanding my AT-ST to attack. The BENEFIT of having a 30 second timer is that a person cannot sneak up on a jedi like that and kill him.
DeneziB wrote:
Camps and Metropolitan areas aside, timesinks aside, ... let's pretend they don't exist.
Underneath everything, there is a fundamental game design issue which has to deal with ensuring that pets cannot be used to grief, and cannot be used to create an unfair situation.
There is no way around the fact that allowing players to instantly pull out a pet anywhere endows them with an unfair advantage in combat, and opens up many situations for griefing in numbers.
Instead of whining about having to wait for an extra 6 seconds to call a pet. Why don't you put your heads together and think of alternatives to delays? Why don't you brainstorm ways to ensure that instacalling pets won't cause grief.
If you think about it long enough, you'll realize the best, simplest solution is to add in a delay.
Answer: Yes, if they pulled out the ATSTs 100 meters out, then the Jedi would still be out of range from being attacked by PCs. When the Jedi sees the ATST, he could withstand a couple of hits from it while running away. However, if the ATSTs were instantly pulled out when the PCs were also in range, then he'll have to withstand attacks from 6 fronts ... and his escape route is effectively taken away.
However, this single scenario is not an argument in itself as to why it is wrong to NOT have a 30 second timer. There are many, many, many unfair, griefing scenarios that are possible if there wasn't a 30 second rule. I'm sure if you remove the 30 second rule, 300,000 players will find out the myriad of possibilities to create unfair combat situations -- Pokeman style.
And finally ... 30 seconds is not a long time to wait. I'm still astounded by the people so bent out of shape over 30 seconds ... it's like, less than a minute.
Matsubaa wrote:
The range of the AT-ST is somewhat more than 10m. I've fought them, I know. Back when they were a one-shot incap from 60m and a good minute or so of waiting while it moseys over and then kills you.
Here's another scenario:
A player rides up 10m froma Jedi. They hit their dismount/camp hotkey, call out their AT-ST and the Jedi is obliterated.
And another:
A player parks their speeder about 100m from a Jedi. They dismount and call their AT-ST. While they wait their 30 seconds, they sneak or even run towards the Jedi and close the gap to within range of the AT-ST's cannons. The AT-ST finally generates at about 10m from the Jedi and the Jedi is obliterated.
Did the Jedi's situation get better or even change with a 30 second timer in place?
The bottom line is that we need to destroy the griefer's gameplay experience and *not* the non-griefers. We can't continue punishing people who didn't do anything because of the potential that someone else might do *something*. Carebear or no, the ultimate griefing in this game is the Dev-griefing where good ideas and good players are ridden down.
Matsubaa wrote:
Your 6 seconds are based on your own imagined numbers.
We tested "instacalling" of pets for 6 months. I've cited it several times. There was a bug in which we could call anywhere outside of a given radius from our declared radius instead of inside that radius. We called anywhere, anytime and it was fine. Was there a massive outcry in the community because pets were constantly being used to grief?
You ignore the hard evidence in favor of the theoretical griefing that SOE is so deathly afraid of when they can't even fix the REAL griefing.
This is *not* a scout perk or a ranger perk. I am working my way back up to master Ranger again, I've been a scout since day one and the 2 or 3 seconds of survival XP that a typical pet camp is worth doesn't matter one whit to me. I don't care for the fact that my camps aren't worth much to anyone right now but this is *not* the value I want them to have. I love to see people use my camps for healing or dancing or a safe place to go AFK for a bit or even just a different place to hang out. These are all perks, these are all uses for a camp. Plopping down a camp for *maybe* as long as 5 seconds to call a pet and then abandon the camp? That's not a perk. That's a waste of a camp.
If the rules of the game are *fine* for 99 of 100 cases, then maybe it's the one case that needs to be addressed. Your magic AT-ST scenario by which you judge the world is that one case.
DeneziB wrote:
You all don't seem to realize that the game's internalmechanism to call creatures, droids, vehicle, faction pets are one in the same. Calling a vehicle is the same as calling a creature. When you say that you spent skill points to call a pet, ... what you really are spending skill points on is for the ability to call a pet within the game's internal mechanism to call objects from your datapad. Any solution regarding the calling of creatures also has to encompass vehicles, droids, faction pets, etc. Hence the 30 second rule because it's the best solution.
You're not suggesting the Devs lied to us, are you? Vehicles, mounts, pets, droids, etc. are all on different systems. Or didn't you read the forums back when people argued that their mount shouldn't count towards their call level?
Also, I spent skillpoints to be able to us a very specific subset of the callable creatures. Does my creature handling ability buy me bigger or better faction personnel? Does it get me better droids? Does it change the way my vehicles get called or what vehicles I can use? Obviously none of this is true. Creature handler calling is distinct from generic "making stuff from the datapad".
If you observe the system, you can even make out a difference between non-CH pets and CH pets. All non-CH pets are at or below CL 10 and are non-vicious. Some CH pets are also below level 10 and non-vicious. This suggests a possible solution, though I don't expect you to like it. How about non-CH pets get stuck with the 30 second timer? CH's don't get penalized for the sake of AT-ST griefers and non-CH's gain the ability to use their pets, droids, etc. effectively.
When you claim to think as hard on the topic as you do, why can't you come up with any solution except the one that's already been thought of?
Vertexon wrote:
Thunderheart will be posting the full list of major features for the next big update (Publish 7) later. In the meantime, though, here are the CH-related ones for your perusal:
New Mounts: Players have two new mounts available to them with Publish 7; Banthas and Cu-Pa’s!
With the speeders in place - I have not had a single person ask me to train a mount for them.... Not to complain but SO - I would rather have all of the problems fixed first.
Camp Restrictions Removed: After Publish 7, players will no longer be required to be in camps to pull out Vehicles, Mounts, Droids or Pets and can pull them out wherever they are, eliminating the player inconveniences of having to find rural areas far from cities, lairs and other no-build zones in order to build a camp. The basic rules of calling Vehicles, Mounts, Droids or Pets are:
· A player will not be able to call a vehicle/mount/pet/droid during combat or 60 seconds after combat is concluded.
· There is a 30 second delay after you call for a vehicle/mount/pet/droid before it will generate.
· A player will not be able to call a mount/pet/droid while mounted or on a vehicle.
· A player will not be able to call a vehicle while mounted or on a vehicle.
Ok so We don't need a camp anymore - however throwing up a camp and calling a pet is still seems to be the fastest way to get a pet out.. You are wandering around - You get agroed - but you can't call a pet. Worse yet when you can call a pet you have to stand there waiting for it to finally appear and again with the problems that are in the game now - it will most likely vanish back into your datapad. Making you wait even longer....
I just don't get why we are supposed to be happy over this.....
Don't let players call an overpowered 125 CL pet.
Any other pet is going to be worthless in PvP, especially against a Jedi, so it doesn't matter if it can be called instantly or not. Tada! Problem solved.
Can we stop punishing the creature handlers for a tiny population of the game griefing a miniscule population now that I've posted the perfect solution?
DeneziB.
Blow it out your ear. You simply don't have a clue. Every post you make is more inane than the one before. You sound, by God maybe you are, a DEV. You have no grasp of what a CH can and can't do. We are supposed to be an "elite" profession. Elite professions can do things non elite professions can't. But you have no idea what CH is about so please butt out.
You think we got it bad guys, wait till they have done nerfing warcry. This is a game where the Devs have no idea what they are doing. It had so much potential.
DeneziB wrote:
IHowever, it doesn't seem like you undersand how the TEF system works. If a person is flagged with a TEF, then that person is attackable, yet cannot attack. So I could drive up to a TEF flagged person on my swoop and instantly call out my ATST after landing on top of him anytime, because combat hasn't started yet.
You and your AT-ST arguement, get over it already.
Do you honestly feel that this 30 second timer is being placed into the game because of the possibility that a player might grief another player using a pet? Or do you think that this 30 second timer is being placed into the game to correct a problem that results from the AUTO-STORE BUG?
You said earlier something like us "using bugs as a defense", sheesh man... the bug is the sole reason this 30 second timer is being placed into the game.