Creature Handler Archive
Thread: What is SOE's vision for Creature Handler?
The only concern seems to be that the other combat classes don't have two weapons i.e. pet and weapon. However, all classes can have a 15 pet, a droid, or faction pets. Besides any class can decide to do CH in addition to their combat skills. If they want to be an artisan/combat class or a dancer/combat class, or a medic/combat class, they should be less powerful than someone that does combat/ch.
Lieluu Sangrante
Holocron wrote:
Berratus, because the game is classless, the assumption is that you pick up multiple skills, multiple professions. Making an elite creature handler equivalent to an elite combat profession would mean that every combatant would need to be a creature handler, because the added benefit of having an NPC tank is enormous.
Holo, this is *already* sort of the case. A good creature handler being able to call out NPC tanks *and* being able to dish full damage as any other profession... *and* the fact that the CH doesn't take that many skill points to get... is making the CH a near no-brainer hybrid choice in PvE and PvP. The effect you're trying to prevent is already present in game, just not to as huge a magnitude.
Since many CH want their pets to be a primarily offensive weapon, and to be a beast master of sorts (and not relying on other means)... why not pump up the offensive capabilities of some of the higher level pets, to allow them to be used as a more potent offensive tool-- but at the same time, restrict the CH from using powerful weapons himself in some manner when the high-level pets are deployed (assuming that he's distracted from trying to control such a ferocious creature)?
Or perhaps slow down the CH's attack speed and accuracy ratings in this situation, to balance the total offensive capability of the higher CH's with the other professions. It makes sense that a high level CH should go toe to toe with the other combat professions... andthus it makes sense for high level CH pets to do more damage than now. But by allowing the CH to do two things at once, you give them an advantage no other combat profession has-- using both his combat attacks at the same time.
The result is that you don't force Master CH's to pick up another combat profession just to keep up, allowing him to rely on his CH skills in combat. And you don't forcemasters of otherprofessions to pick up CH just to keep up with the powerful CH's who do.If you have the skills, youshould be able to be very potent in either area at any given time in combat. Just not both at the same time. And if you want to rely on both skill sets, then perhaps neither should be allowed to be at maximum effectiveness... but their combined useshould still be a very effective mixture.
YoungMace wrote:
Isn't a pistoleer and Elite class?
Ok a Pistoleer can spec several other lines as well right?
So if Master Pistoleer > MCH and both have points can spec other lines?
Isn't this a wash?
Sigh nevermind........
Err... a Pistoleer can spec other lines. He can't however, use *both* at the same time to *double* his attacks anddo much more damage. With exception to spec-ing the CH line, of course.
A Pistoleer who's a Carbineer can't shoot both weapons simultaneously. A Pistoleer who's a Rifleman can't either. Same goes for a Pistoleer who's a BH, except to have access to his naughty Pistol Whip (which needs serious balancing) along withUnderhand Shot.
Buta CH who picks up any other combat spec effectively doubles his offensive capability. I agree that a CH shouldn't have to do so to be competitive, and should be able to rely nearly solely on his pet. But a CH also shouldn't be allowed to have the best of both worlds all the time if this is the case.
If the system were changed to make certain high level pets more powerful, but at the same time to have the CL of pets deployed penalize the accuracy and speed of a CH's own attack with his own weapons... you'd end up with less CH munchkins who pick it up alongside another combat professiononly to be uber and to dominate in combat. And more CH's who do it because they enjoy the concept of pets and playing beastmaster-- a more "pure" CH if you will.
NikkiDial wrote:
Holocron wrote:
Berratus, because the game is classless, the assumption is that you pick up multiple skills, multiple professions. Making an elite creature handler equivalent to an elite combat profession would mean that every combatant would need to be a creature handler, because the added benefit of having an NPC tank is enormous. Some of the pets you control are by themselves as powerful as an elite combat player, and that's not counting you, the CH, into the combat equation.
I guess all I am saying is that it's not a one to one comparison.
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By making that leap of logic there you have made it so the CH NEEDs to add an elite Weapons profession to be viable also. Because you nerf the class down to where the CH/Pistoleer master will be equal to a Pistoleer.
Stars
Exactly. And in addition, they've also made it so the other elite weapons classes NEED to take CH in order to keep up with their pistoleer friends who do.
So instead of ending up with pure CH's and pure Weapons professions, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but balancing each out in combat:
We get everyone being a hybrid of both. With the most dominating players being masters in both... which becomes thenew de-facto template for the battlefield. Allowing CH's to use another profession's attacks in full, *and* keeping CH's weak doesn't solve the problem. It just moves it to another level. The problem still remains.
The only proper fix is to make CH'smorepotent at master levels, and yet exclude them from relying on other combat skills when they've got their most powerful pets out.
And in addition, other elite classes must not be allowed to operate at full capacity when they pick up high level CH pets either.
This way, you have balance. The two are equally effective, in different ways. Instead of everyone rushing to spec out their character according to the default Pistoleer/CH template.
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.
This just shows how much you know about the CH profession. Anyone can easily get faction perks and it's extremely easy to attain three stormtroopers in less than few days. Two weeks most and I can get three AT-STs. So please tell me how is increasing our lv cap increasing our ability to destroy things because anyone who has three faction pets are more powerful than a Master CH with 1 Rancor out? As a Master CH not only we have to travel to different planets to find babies but also die over and over again from trying to tame creatures. Yet you Devs keep giving us the impression that theserisk-free faction pets that have 10kHAM 290dmg and require no skills to use are fine? Please give me a valid reason to keep playing my CH because I don't see one.
Holocron wrote:
Sindorry, I honestly don't know enough about CH's to give an answer to that. I don't have a high-level CH.
Let me pose you the question--what do you think should be the benefit of being a Master CH? What is it that is failing to give you a sense of reward there?
Holo,
Right now we need variety at the highest levels to make Master CH more worthwhile. There are no worthwhile, tamable pets above level 50. By worthwhile, I do not mean combat - personally, I take the second view that I enjoy taking care of them and I only use them when I have to in combat, and if push comes to shove, I will take the fall before they do when possible. I mean there's pretty much NOTHING out there beyond level 50 pets. What you could really do is add in some creatures of level 55-70, they don't have to be much more powerful than the level 50's but make them INTERESTING, and I think we could do a lot more with the class.
well when pets run away and disengage the opponent your fighting to where your the only one in combat with it, kinda stinks especially when it kills you than finishes off your pets afterwards causeing them to lose vitality where if all 3 pets had been on the same target at the same time the mob would have died instead of the otherway around, I see this happening extremely alot while on Naboo, that planet seems to be the worst for me controlling my pets, all other planets I have far less troubles with.
Holocron wrote:
YoungMace, the changes are not being made by me; they are being made by the people who know the BE and CH professions well.
Yes, we DO feel we have made many positive changes for CH's. We've made major strides in keeping your pets from being deleted, getting stuck, and so on. We saw those are the top things that we needed to address--whether or not your pet runs away in a fight seems less important if you can't manage to have a pet at all. (This is why store moved btw).
This isn't to minimize the things that we still need to do, mind you.
Holocron wrote:
OK, sorry, I had a meeting there for a bit.
So I hear ya. My takeaways form the thread here are:
- We screwed up the gurreck change by not compensating for the armor reduction at the same time as we made the reduction
- We are overestimating the value of the armor (we may have to agree to disagree on this one--but if we can compensate for the armor in other ways, will that be sufficient?)
- You aren't competitive in combat compared to combat classes--and the issue isn't so much being an even match, but but in the ballpark. We're overstimating the value of the pets, basically.
- There's a lot of bugs with pathfinding, pets getting autostored, etc, that we need to address.
I that a fair summation?
How about balancing out faction pets also. I mean common something is wrong when I see broadcasts of people selling Darkstorm Troopers (9200 HAM) for 10K and AT-ST for 17K and not sure if I am correct on this, but they can control 3 ea of those bad boys, yea so they lose their pets when they die, ours lose vitality and we have to grow them and care for them, yet some JoeSchmoe can go buy a AT-ST off some joker on the corner and get a pet that can 1 shot most players.
A CH with no weapon skill = > Pistoleer
So that's a wash. Those are 2 elite professions. Right?
Now a pistoleer can spec a few lines in CH and get a decent pet and be better with a weapon than myself and use a good mid lvl pet.
I as the MCH pick up a few lvls with a weapon but can't do nearl the damage or KD that a pistoleer can do.
Considering KD > All in PvP atm except an (AT-ST some would argue that last point)
Then Raph's arguement is invalid IMHO.
And again as a CH atm my pets won't even stay engage unless I'm within 40-60 clicks of the mob/enemy and even then at times he ceases his attack.
Raph telling me a straight CH is stronger than other Elite classes atm is wrong imho.
YoungMace wrote:
Sundown you took my reply out of context......
A CH with no weapon skill = > Pistoleer
So that's a wash. Those are 2 elite professions. Right?
Now a pistoleer can spec a few lines in CH and get a decent pet and be better with a weapon than myself and use a good mid lvl pet.
I as the MCH pick up a few lvls with a weapon but can't do nearl the damage or KD that a pistoleer can do.
Considering KD > All in PvP atm except an (AT-ST some would argue that last point)
Then Raph's arguement is invalid IMHO.
And again as a CH atm my pets won't even stay engage unless I'm within 40-60 clicks of the mob/enemy and even then at times he ceases his attack.
Raph telling me a straight CH is stronger than other Elite classes atm is wrong imho.
Then in that case, we seem to totally agree. But in order to make the MCH more powerful, we must also prevent him from using combat skills in other branches just as effectively at the same time. And by doing this, we also prevent the Pistoleer from picking up CH to uber-augment his unbalancing sillyness.
Raph's argument is valid only so far as that a more powerful MCH would make the situation worse. This is true. But making MCH's weakerdoes *not* fix the core fundamentalsituation. It just displaces it slightly.
Two things need to be done:
1) To make MCH's more effective in combat with his good pets alone.
2) To prevent MCH's from benefitting fully from another combat profession at the same time his good pets are out. (And vice versa.)
Doing one of the above without the other will further break the system. And the system won't be properly fixed without doing both.
Holocron wrote:
Making an elite creature handler equivalent to an elite combat profession would mean that every combatant would need to be a creature handler, because the added benefit of having an NPC tank is enormous. Some of the pets you control are by themselves as powerful as an elite combat player, and that's not counting you, the CH, into the combat equation.
Sorry but this statement is the biggest bunch of BS I have ever read. How is it that a CH that spends skill credits to get pets worse than ANY NON CH GETTING FACTION PETS FOR FREE? Well? How is 3 gurrecks or any other combo of top teir CH pets worse than ANYONE getting just 1 At-St?
Factor THAT in then come talk to us.