Creature Handler Archive
Thread: What is SOE's vision for Creature Handler?
Holo, you just threw the "tamagotchi" folks out the window with this "vitality" thing, pets will be put to sleep now, not good fora game. That companion animal will take death blows, and it will wither away.
As for no sense of reward, it's being eaten away by CL caps, now nerfs to the best pets, the only ones with armor 2 in the game I've seen.
There is a very very long thread on what CH folks want, the top 5 issues thread. Nerfing gurrecks and rock beetles to the level of a 23 CL pet is not in that list anywhere, or on any list from any other proffesion. Doing so after making sure you can only have one out at a time, even at master, makes CH on dangerous planets a no go situation.
Read it please, take the time.
I think that Challenge level 60-70 pets should be added that Master Creature handlers can tame and use. that would be a good reward for the effort in my opinon.
Some changes that would support Holocrons vision I'd like to propose
1. The ability to build a zoo or ranch or something of the like where your pets can stay and be visually active (in other words able to actually see it in the zoo/ranch)
2. more babies, we need more variation, all the Master Creature handlers use practically the same pets.
3. Challenge level 60-70 babies. also fix the Kimogilla's of Bio-engineer and the other broken pets of Bio-engineer.
4. some more info on mounts would be nice.
5. some abilities that pets can do without fight. Lets be honest, as it stands thats all a pet can really do, fight, do tricks and follow you around. how about something useful thats not combat based? something like a fetch command, where you can train your pet to run to your house and bring you an item out of your house than bring it back to you (only if your on same planet as house), or the ability of a pet to pull creatures to you (intentionally 
, I think the designer mentioned this though). or maybe allow certain pets to track other creatures through their sniffing/stalking abilities. something like that would make it alot more useful.
please discuss this, I know not all of my ideas are the greatest.. but hey they are ideas.
Not to dispute your vision
, but Creature Handler is an elite class, no? Shouldn't *any* elite class be a viable one? Shouldn't CHs be able to tailor themselves as a combat character or a zoo keeper, or even somewhere in between, if/when they decide to?When I first started SWG, my vision (such that it was before I started playing the game) was that my character would control several very large animals on the side of the rebellion to counter the faction pets (stormtroopers, AT-STs, etc). I'd camp out for extended periods of time in the wilderness and ambush any imperials that'd make the mistake of wandering by. I was looking forward to establishing/joining a PA with this in mind, delving into the rebellion roleplayer model (who can forget the opening scenes of the rebellion on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back? My personal favorite!)
Anyway, just my two cents, and my *vision*.
i want to rate you HOLOCRON!!! i wana give you a ZERO!!!
If i wanted to play tamago-chi i have a dog in RL... put durability on pets is G A Y...
And im not sorry for the rude words... maybe it helps to express my disgust, anger and hate for you at SOE... this game rocks, dont make it suck like Blizzard did with Diablo2 to make ppl quit coz servers were too crowded!
Also i'd like to add that i am nearly gated as a novice with this recent patch...not entirely because of the technical aspects of the patch but more over because I am having to constantly RELEARN how to play as a CH while having to anticipate what is going to be changing next...I would honestly LOVE to keep my pets for extended durations but I can't even GET to that point because I can only have two pets total and have a looooooong way to go.
Why are the devs asking us what the benefits of being MCH are? That should have been designed INTO the class...I sure as hell don't know what the benefit is because I just keep getting more and more frustrated with the class AND the responses of some of the development team.
And who's bright idea was it to remove 'store' from the radial...that adds at minimum having to do CTRL+D and then two mouse clicks....yeah, that was well thought out. And i recall reading somewhere that it was only in there to begin with because of a devs 'lazyiness'....how about 'if it's not broke don't fix it'?
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?
I am sort of the 2nd half of the kind of CH that you described... I like pets... but, as such, I was hoping to take it ALL the way... and go totally weaponless... I wanted to be the lonely ranger kind of beast-master sort of player... My main goal is always to protect the pet above myself (after all, I can clone).
For me, the benefit of being a MCHwas always about having 3 pets...
With 70 levels I can have:
- 1 level 50 pet, and 1 level 20.
- Or, I can have 2 level 35 pets...
- Or, I can have 3 level 23 pets...
The problem is 3 level 23 pets isnot as good (in terms of protecting the pet as well as the master) from harm.
So, there's no more advantage to being a Master.
Someone with 4,4,4,0 will have an easier time keeping 1 level 50 pet alive, and himself alive, than a MCH with 3 lower-level pets.
The extra level 20 pet you can use with your level 50 pet is nice, but not really a huge impact. And still, there's no need for 3 pets.
I don't know if I'm explaining myself well enough. But I hope you get what I mean.
Why woudln't you expect a MCH to be as powerful as a Master pistoleer? I know for a fact that we currently aren't but explain your reasoning for this. Please.
What trade offs? What are own attack? Not sure if you noticed mate but every can now control pets. What are own attack? Great multiple creatures. All of which can only attack. What other options do we have for pets? What other options? Look at them? Feed them repeadetly? Err mount them?
What other things can pets do that would be of interest to roll players? Make noises?
Cross posting this for Holo, and for the fact that this fits in this thread as well:
Ya know, last night I was taming on Endor and had my trusty GSP Ruu out with me. He's been my faithful pet since the beginning. Everyone in my PA knows him by name and asks me to get him out. Why? Not because he's special- hell, we're on Talus and they're EVERYWHERE. It's because of how I roleplay with him. He's my COMPANION.
Well last night I got aggro'd (while mask scent was still up, so go figure) by 4 blood mites and their queen. Ruu rushed to my aid and I tried to fight them off him. I went down and watched as those 4 slowly ate my pet up. I got up RIGHT before he went down, threw a heal on him and jumped in. I jumped in to take a DB rather than lose my pet.
I died before Ruu went down. I was very happy (funny, eh?) Then I got back and pulled out Ruu- 98%. They got him. I was so upset I went out and immediately got a vitality pack from a BE (had to change planets to do it- not a cheap thing from Endor). What happened? It fixed him- a whopping 1%. Now he's 99/99%. He'll never be whole again, and I can't help but look at that as a failure. On my part, and mostly, on yours (SOE/Developers- not you personally).
If you want for people to have pets and get attached to them, give them the opportunity to. I was planning on having 3 GSP's at master with Ruu at the head. Now I'll probably retire him, train a new pet and name him Ruu so no one will be able to tell. Is that what you're looking for? So much for attachment to my pet.
These changes that we've been barraged with have made people very bitter and upset. This happened to me last night and I was so mad... I actually popped my monitor a good one. Ruu will never be the same. Why are you making these changes? It's not to balance us out- I saw a member of my PA duel 2 guys right in a row. They made rules- no db's, no bleeds, no knockdowns. He took them both out in 5 seconds apiece. Given, he's a master pistoleer and master of the bh pistol line, but still- think a master ch has a CHANCE against that? Not really. So why make all these changes? I could care less about him being more powerful than me if I was happy with my class- but I'm not anymore.
fugazzz wrote:
wth? That's not really what I wanted to hear. I have a RL cat and dog for that and i'm too old to play pokemon. And you say they can do other things besides fight...LIKE WHAT? A STUPID TRICK or TWO? Or perhaps you mean the wandering off, getting stuck and random non-responsiveness? They can't even carry anything...they have no value really OTHER THAN TO FIGHT.
I'd say that it is half a combat class and half for those who enjoy taking care of things, sort of a Tamagotchi thing. So in a sense it has the same demographic as say, Monster Rancher or Pokemon.
I did put a smiley there when I said that. Both MR and Pokemon are games about raising creatures over time, training them, and then using them to fight, so in a literal sense, it's a fairly accurate comparison.
As far as other things they can do--they provide defense (as opposed to being a weapon); they serve as a roleplaying tool... etc. As I said, many people, most even, won't necessarily see these functions as added value though.
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:
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?
When you get to MCH, grasshopper, you will be able to answer your own question. For now, be assured that there is no difference, other than a charcter title most do not use (might as well name your toon "KillMeFirst").