Creature Handler Archive
Thread: I am afraid I need to piss some people off.
AlufNull wrote:
"To offer an alternative, I would suggest pushing the promise of documentation that was made to BEs awhile back."
And what would you suggest I push with?
Mature, well thought out posts, PMs and perhaps even e mailson the subject (BE documentation) often enough to keep it visible.
Cressida
Shaylin, that does not work. JustG asked me to 'chill out' because they were not intentionally trying to mess with CH's in PM. When asked where was the proof, he could not produce the pudding. No dev has spoken since.
Again this leads me to believe either they are really thinking things through. Or we are going to have to grin and bear it. SOE track record suggestsI should practice grinning.
/smile
We have been doing this since the system has been implimented. All we are asking for is a definite "x stats are too high for non ch."
The only semblance of an answer we have gotten is "Some non ch pets are out of balance and need to be adjusted."
That was a month ago.
I am done. If you think that is the way to go, more power to you, I will do it my way.
You know what they'll do, then? They'll nerf BE AND CH.
Just to get them to give you some numbers?
Interesting logic...
AlufNull wrote:
"Mature, well thought out posts, PMs and perhaps even e mails on the subject (BE documentation) often enough to keep it visible. "
We have been doing this since the system has been implimented. All we are asking for is a definite "x stats are too high for non ch."
The only semblance of an answer we have gotten is "Some non ch pets are out of balance and need to be adjusted."
That was a month ago.
I am done. If you think that is the way to go, more power to you, I will do it my way.
~Aluf: The crux is players are on a totally different time line than the Devs. I am not saying I like it, am just pointing it out. If you keep the question of documentation in the front of the Devs brains they will likely deal with it sooner than they would otherwise... it's just that that "sooner" means different things to them and us.
Remember they have a slew of professions with troubles that those folks think are just as important as yours. It's up to the particular community to keep a particular problemfresh in their minds... and do it in such a way as to not "piss them off" (as per your subject heading). Keeping the topic clear and simple will help as well.
If brash and flagrant mass use/production of something you yourself acknowledge is flawed is how you wish to gain the attention, be prepared for what you will get. Odds are it will be sweeping changes that while coming "sooner" rather than later, won't be what the community is hoping for.
~Pluto: I am sure you have tried PMs, E Mails and I know you have tried many, many posts for the issues you champion. (While some people might not deem all of those posts as "mature and well thought out", it is clear you do try to be heard). Unfortunately one of the things that the CH community stumbles over is that we do not have a narrow, specific, simple problem that you are trying to raise interest in.
Things like visible armor, pet stables, cyborg implants, pet size adjusting, wild pet alterations via BE... and the incredibly long list of "wishes" for CH are all things that while some people think are very important are really not "necessary" in the eyes of the designers.
If, as a community, we could come up with a short clear list of the things that really need to be fixed ASAP, we would probably get a lot farther. The only things thatcome to my mind as being absolutelynecessary arethe bug fixes.... -fix the problems with mounts introduced in publish 6 (HAM updates and listening to commands), -continued work to solve pet autostoring, -continued work to solve pets stopping or slowing to a crawl (presumably at server boundaries), -continued work to make /tellpet more reliable, -check to make sure babies are spawning properly.
Pretty much everything else I have read about, while fun, doesn't sound like a priority over fixing the other problems/professions in the game. CH is still a fun profession, I don't consider it "broken" as some folks say it is. Yes we do have some very irritating bugs/problems, but otherwise, especially compared to some other professions, we are in great shape.
When put up against another elite combat profession we do pale greatly. That is partly because we have the skill points available to wield both CH and a formidable weapon at the same time.... I also believe the delay in the rest of the combat balancing is magnifying the differences in CH (who was "balanced" early) and those professions that have yet to be hit. I feel that we, as a community, should support the rest of the combat balancing going in as soon as possible so that we can get a better idea of where we really stand.... Before we push for more "extras".
Shay,
You mirror my own state of thinking at the moment. The only two things I think have to be immediately fixed are combat rebalance and BE pets. Both make CH useless. I personally am standing behind my own SOE boycott. I will not buy anything else they put out until those two things are fixed. It is sad that the one major bug in the game that hurts us is not even our bug.
Aluf. I have to apologize. I over looked the last sentence in your original paragraph. You do clearly state you will give away the uber non-CH pets. I can clearly support your cause. I am assertive-agressive. I think you must push the Devs. Unfortunately, if pushed they seem to push back. It is the Dev/GM GOD-complex. You can watch it in any system from PnP to MMoRPG. Mess up someones design they kill you or make you weaker. It is hard for them to drop down to our level. They will not look outside the box.
Even now I feel this is a long trip in back of the family car. The fun may be at the end of the ride. But the trip getting there is a sleeper. Unless of course you beat on your siblings. And it had been suggested that the forums provide that beating on the siblings entertainment level. Of course, I could just go to sleep for the entire trip and not miss a thing. And that is what many have done by cancelling their accounts until the trip is over.
AlufNull wrote:
Shay, as to the devs timeline...
I am not asking for sweeping changer here. I am not even asking them to fix a bug. All I want is for them to say somthing along the lines of "We do not want non ch pets with more then 900 HAM and 10% resists." or anything along those lines. I don't care what the stats are going to be, I just want to be able to tell my customers and friends that they don't need to be looking over there shoulder for the next pet nerf.
I don't know about you, but I think taking 2-3 minutes to write one sentance on the boards is not too much to ask.
I know you don't want sweeping changes, I was saying that that is likely what you will get by the tactic outlined in your original post.
Odds are the Devs don't know the answer to your question yet, thus making it a bit harder than the 2-3 minutes you are asking for. I know that sounds lame, but they probably want to see how things stack up to whatever changes they make to the combat professions first.
If the servers got flooded with many "too powerful" non ch BE pets they would probably take quicker action, it just won't be the action that will benefit BE and CH as much as a later change would.
They should have a good idea, or else they should not have made such incredibly sweeping changes. If they are taking stabs in the dark (not that it would surprise me), this game is simply doomed. To paraphrase one of Raph Koster's favorite responses, games need around six months to balance. It has been almost a year and many professions are not even functional enough to consider balancing.
I would like to believe that wild creatures are now set as the baseline they have in mind for each CL. It is fairly consistant. The problem from here on out is not making creatures match players, but making players match creatures.
I am also sure they know they do not want a BE made pet being some percentage over a wild one. It is very obvious that something which determines that cut-off does not function properly. All we want to know is what that cut-off is. It really is not a hard answer to give.
My own take on this is that maybe it will get a response and I am not concerned what it is as long as something gets done. I really hate exploits, and while it may look like I am condoning this one, the BE monstrosities should have been fixed long ago.
It is poor programming practice to put in fixes and not follow-up on them. It peeves me off to no end to see it happen and if that is what it takes to get the job done properly, I will support unseemly methods to get them to learn.
As I am now a BE, I might even assist with AlufNull's project on Starsider. They will either fix it, continue to ignore it, or ban me. I want the first. I am very near the point that I do not care about the latter. Ignoring it simply is not an out I will let them take now.