Creature Handler Archive

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Vertexon wrote:

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MP-Denmark wrote:

Sounds nice with the Cu-Pa mountable, but the I got a question, being not a CH.

What lvl is the Cu-Pa, cause I would love to ride on.

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Regular cu pa is CL 11. Wasteland cu pa is CL 19.

To my knowledge, there are no wild cu pa or bantha variants that can be used by a non-CH (even the incredibly tiny Dwarf Bantha is CL 11). Unless some are introduced, all non-CH bantha and cu pa mounts will need to be made by a Bio-Engineer.

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Just theoretically at least... shouldn't the kwi, blurrg, cu pa, etc. all have the same saddle and such? The bridle is the only real change between these nearly identical creatures.

Likewise, why can't we mount bagerasets or gurnasets?

I can't sell mounts for crap anymore, but maybe I could at least have something interesting?

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DaRoamer wrote:

Now, off my soapbox and back on topic.I have to say I totally agree with DeneziB on this one. The first few times I read people write that their pets are there weapons I had to wonder what you people are smoking. Pets are NOT weapons. As DeneziBrightly pointed outthey are basically another person fighting WITH you. I can't understand whymost of you can'trealized this. The difference between your pet and a gun is that your gun is not a tank. If you're in the middle of being attacked and you switch weapons, well, your still being attacked and it's still just YOU against the enemy. If however you and your uberpet are taking on a big beast you are most likely using your pet as a tank. How many times do you attack before your pet? Be truthful. Now, if he isabout to die and there's no 30 second rule well just store him, bring out another tank, have him attack and take all the damage while you fight from a safe distance, never having to worry about being hit. Exactly HOW is this the same someone being able to switch weapons during a fight? Please explain.

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You demonstrated in this paragraph that you don't have a good grasp of the situation. We can not now, nor could we ever switch pets during combat. We cannot call pets during combat nor can we store them for 60 seconds post combat. The 30 second rule has absolutely *nothing* to do with the "revolving door of pets" effect falsely cited so many times in various rants and whines about Creature Handlers.

We can't switch pets in the middle of battle and we're not arguing that we should be able to do so. The 30 second rule is to the best of anyone's knowledge a pointless change which only disadvantages Creature Handlers while providing no tangible benefit to anyone.

I will, again, re-iterate. There was a bug which allowed insta-calling for at least 6 months. The combat restrictions were in effect, as always, but the geographical restrictions on pet calling were lifted. The bug had to do with a simple reversed comparison operator, something I've spotted more than once in more than one game system here. In pseudo-code it's something like the following:

"if distance_from_house <= 32mthen pets=callable" was reversed to be "if distance_from_house > 32mthen pets=callable"

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Matsubaa wrote:

You demonstrated in this paragraph that you don't have a good grasp of the situation. We can not now, nor could we ever switch pets during combat. We cannot call pets during combat nor can we store them for 60 seconds post combat. The 30 second rule has absolutely *nothing* to do with the "revolving door of pets" effect falsely cited so many times in various rants and whines about Creature Handlers.

We can't switch pets in the middle of battle and we're not arguing that we should be able to do so. The 30 second rule is to the best of anyone's knowledge a pointless change which only disadvantages Creature Handlers while providing no tangible benefit to anyone.

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No, I understand the situation as it currently is just fine. What I was actually responding to (although I failed to make it clear) were the people who claimed that since pets are their "weapons" they should have ZERO restrictions about calling them and switching them at any time just like you can hotkey yourblasters and armour.

As far as the 30 sec rule not benefiting anyone,well obviouslybeing able to call pets and vehicles at any time does benefit everyone. Why the 30 seconds? I don't know. I really don't spend my time playing the game trying tofind ways to "beat the system" or grief people. Heck, I don't even like using macros. Call me a glutton for punishment. I was just trying to think of a way this could be used to make CHs too powerful. Maybe it wasn't a good example. However, there are plently of people who spend a great deal of time trying tofind ways to shirk the systemand knowing their own game probably better than any of us I'm sure the devs are aware of wayspeople could do this if they had no wait when calling pets at any time. The point is, I don't think they would institute this just to annoy people hehe. Some people seem to think the devs do EVERYTHING just to annoy them. "Wait, you're giving us Cu Pas as mounts? We CLEARLY asked for cats! How dare you insult us like this? I'm cancelling my account."

Also, even though you can't call pets during combat,can't youcall a pet while your other pet is in combat as long as you are not fighting? I'm only a novice CH so I can still only have one pet out a time and I may be wrong about this.For example,in a situation where you are in a group of people with your pets acting as tanks for the group, as long as your not aggroed you can stand on the sidelines calling pets all day. Now, you can do this now if you set a camp near the lair but since you have to be a fair distance from the lair to set up a camp you need to run back and forth. This isn't a very good battle strategy since it seems like it would take a fair amount of time. Probably close to 30 seconds? Again, I'm just brainstorming.

Yeah, I understand there was a bug that allowed this to happen and the world didn't end. I don't think anyone is saying it will. However, it could lead to unfair advantages for the CH class and what the devs want most is balance. Either way, I don't think there's any point is complaining about it until we see how it works on Test Center.

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Foth wrote:

I appreciate all your great feedback so far. Thunderheart is out on vacation which is why you are not seeing a lot of Dev responses on this thread in the last few days. I did want to take a little time to update you on what we have decided in regards to changes to removing the camp restriction for calling pets, droids, mounts and vehicles. We have decided to alter our changes so that calling a pet, mount, vehicle or droid will work like normal without the new time delays when called from a Scout camp or inside a city. Effectively, this means calling a pet, droid, mount or vehicle will work the same in Publish 7 as it currently does when called from a Scout camp or city. When calling outside a Scout camp or city, the new changes will apply.

Message Edited by SWG-Runesabre on 02-25-2004 02:47 PM

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Runesabre
Lead Designer
Star Wars Galaxies

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NlMH wrote:

Thank you very much for your fast response and update information. I realize you must be overwhelmed with complaints and requests. I see that this is an ongoing process that requires comprimise from both the Devs and the Players.

Certainly true enough on the overwhelmed part. But if you're going to take the time to address something, then do it right. There's no need for compromise if you're right. But I'm happy to compromise on subjective items.

While not overwhelmed, I am pleased with their decision to restrain the30 sec.timer from Camps and Cities.Although itdoes not solve the Auto Store problem, it does at least give me apalpable alternative.

It's a weak solution at best. There are plenty of players, both in and not in combat, that 30 seconds stranded will be a lifetime, or at least a cloning experience. I've had friends without scout get killed trying to walk back after the vehicle poofed. Same with pets. With the tank, I have a chance to get away.

Despite the fact that only CH's, Scouts, and Rangerscan make camps,CH'sare the only ones currently affected by the bug until the Droid Invasion goes LIVE.

All players are affected. I guess it is some plus to non-scouts, non-ch's long as they can live for 30 seconds.

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The real solution is to fix the two bugs that made this an issue to begin with. I'm perfectly happy calling my pet in a city and having it follow me around, if it would do that. From that perspective, this bug is as bad as the autostore. If they followed me, I'd have them out all the time, unless they autostored...back to square one.

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Matsubaa wrote:

Just theoretically at least... shouldn't the kwi, blurrg, cu pa, etc. all have the same saddle and such? The bridle is the only real change between these nearly identical creatures.

Likewise, why can't we mount bagerasets or gurnasets?

I can't sell mounts for crap anymore, but maybe I could at least have something interesting?

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That would be awesome, butthere must betechnical reasons for that not being the case. Those creatures do seem to share the same skeleton, but they appear to have different 3D models on top of that skeleton. The humbaba situation sometimes leads to the misconception that the skeleton is all that matters. Rather, a humbaba IS a falumpaset in every way... just with a different name and different stats.

I have a tame rhoa kwi on Test Center, and just picked up a blurrg today... so I'll see when the code hits Test. But considering guf drolgs, bolmas, bagerasets, mawgax, etc aren't mountable, I'm not really expecting them to be.

I realize it is not an ultimate solution and didn't mean to trivialize everyone else, but if you are simply traveling and your vehicle autostores, then 30 seconds is not that big of deal to wait to regenerate it.

If your vehicle autostores at a point where you happen to be around 1 or moreAggressives, which has happened to me and even though I can make and drop camps, I ALWAYS have a Burst-Run Macro Readily Available.

Unless I happen to be sitting on top of a Force NPCor an Enraged Bull Rancor, much like our pets used to since last Publishwhen we pulled them out, there are few enemies in this game that I cannot outrun to safety.

I do not think Vehicle Auto-Store is nearly as big of an issue, since when traveling, you are not directly and purposely engaging an enemy or enemies. When the timer is implimented, it will not be necessary to walk for miles and miles to a city, only find a clear spot and wait 30 seconds. If referring to Dathomir, I wouldn't suggest going there alone at any account, certainly not without Buffs at least. A Nightsister or Kunga Warrior can knock you off your vehicle and kill you anyway if you drive to close to them.

There should be at least some risk to traveling to advanced planets.

Since the Auto-Store maybe a server issue, it'snot as easily rectifiable as pet distancing from player when generated. I do hope that sometime in the near future, they will find a way to stabilize pet existence with its master.

Bottom Line- I can live with the proposed changes for now.

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DaRoamer wrote:

Also, even though you can't call pets during combat, can't you call a pet while your other pet is in combat as long as you are not fighting? I'm only a novice CH so I can still only have one pet out a time and I may be wrong about this. For example, in a situation where you are in a group of people with your pets acting as tanks for the group, as long as your not aggroed you can stand on the sidelines calling pets all day.

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DaRoamer wrote:

Also, even though you can't call pets during combat,can't youcall a pet while your other pet is in combat as long as you are not fighting? I'm only a novice CH so I can still only have one pet out a time and I may be wrong about this.For example,in a situation where you are in a group of people with your pets acting as tanks for the group, as long as your not aggroed you can stand on the sidelines calling pets all day. Now, you can do this now if you set a camp near the lair but since you have to be a fair distance from the lair to set up a camp you need to run back and forth. This isn't a very good battle strategy since it seems like it would take a fair amount of time. Probably close to 30 seconds? Again, I'm just brainstorming.

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