Creature Handler Archive

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QuantumArtist wrote:

I beg to differ! I think they spent far too much time on CH, and thats why they're reluctant to fix it again. They have it set in their heads that the solution to fixing creature handler is altering every creature in the game. This proved to be a disaster when they did the great CH revamp. Instead of adjusting CH, they nerfed the heck out of every creature in the game.

This had the tragic side effect of emmasculating the game, making it far too easy to play and solo featured character creatures, while at the same time making CH utterly incapable of competing with other professions.

I think the devs are weary about repeating the process... and rightly so! It was a huge undertaking and a massive disaster.

The idea behind this thread is to think of a solution to CH which does not involve altering creatures in any way whatsoever. We want a faster and less potentially devistating solution. We all know CH needs a leg up. This thread is about other ways to achieve our niche in the easiest and most fun ways possible.

In other words, we're brainstorming on alternative solutions. So think outside the box and lets see what options there are out there!

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If you enjoy the intellectual exercise of brainstorming, by all means be my guest ... but there's no empirical evidence after the last 2 years that such idea-generation has the slightest impact whatsoever on the design process. Wherever they're getting the 'ideas' that have thrown CH (and the game as a whole) into the toilet, it isn't from us.

Message Edited by KzinKiller on 07-10-2005 11:05 AM

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KzinKiller wrote:

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If you enjoy the intellectual exercise of brainstorming, by all means be my guest ... but there's no empirical evidence after the last 2 years that such idea-generation has the slightest impact whatsoever on the design process. Wherever they're getting the 'ideas' that have thrown CH (and the game as a whole) into the toilet, it isn't from us.

Message Edited by KzinKiller on 07-10-2005 11:05 AM

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Its been said before there are alot of good ideas on the forums, and sadly the devs will never read and see them, or even use them as an inspiration. The facts are pretty plain now the game is marked for dumbing down.

The non jedi professions are merely viewed as filler on the way to jedi. There has been no focus on increaseing content either in scout ranger or ch in forever. I am merely guessing here, but I think that the CURB was the end all and be all of profession content. Now all we will see is very piddle affair.

The truth of the matter is these professions have been pretty systematically been downsized in role and abilities. Camps are now totally redundant. The freecall allows players to get the benefits with relative ease. Calling droids for healing no need for camp heals and with speeders town is never more then five minutes away. Traps are marked for non pvp period and thus cannot be a cheap buff to ch or scout or even ranger. To further reduce their use the limits on where they can and cannot be used supposedly to stop fast grinding? Make it so anywhere where a trap might be pivotal simply is not the case anymore. Other passive skills that might make the scout worth something such as forage maskscent and terrain negotiation are also pretty irrelevant. The scout food nerf basically destroyed the skill makeing it useless. Terrain negotiation is simply neutered thanks to mounts and speeders being more effective. Maskscent has been continuously assaulted time and again to the point that it is worthless. All this leaves is creature harvesting, but this infact is little more then a minor money makeing scheme with far more lucrative avenues in looting.

Creature handlers have successively had their pets reduced in both power offensive and defensive even the new ham system has increased this early in the game a pet was something to be dealt with not so anymore even though it no longer perfectly stacks with all the defensive and offensive mods in the game. Ranger is further devalued by all the scout blows, but also by the fact that most lootable game is centered in known and thus campable locations. If you want krayt the graveyard is the way to go and thanks to speeder is easily surveyed. The geonosian cave is a known location and so on and so forth.

To think the developers are actually going to reverse the trend of continually makeing these professions more obsolesent is really a fools hope. To make matters worse its a viscious circle with each nerf. More players leave these profession. Makeing their concerns less relevant, and tempting the developement team to remove advantagous abilities or allowing them to be given off too other professions or generally given to all.

Alas the future for the pure scout professions continues to grow bleaker by the day.

Well, i had an idea it would help balance CH a little more and make them not totally useless in pvp either duels or GCW it involves 2 attacks

-Tackle- This entails your pet, assuming it is over CL 20, running down and pouncing on your opponent. This skill works just like underhand shot and is acquired at tier 3 of CH

-Pin- This attack, which is used after Tackle, will leave ur pet on top of the opponent making him unable to stand up for 10 seconds, however the CH cannot attack during this period or it is automatically broken do to the fact that you could not get a cleaar shot at your target with ur pet on top of him. This is only achieved at master CH

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K3nsh1n wrote:

Well, i had an idea it would help balance CH a little more and make them not totally useless in pvp either duels or GCW it involves 2 attacks

-Tackle- This entails your pet, assuming it is over CL 20, running down and pouncing on your opponent. This skill works just like underhand shot and is acquired at tier 3 of CH

-Pin- This attack, which is used after Tackle, will leave ur pet on top of the opponent making him unable to stand up for 10 seconds, however the CH cannot attack during this period or it is automatically broken do to the fact that you could not get a cleaar shot at your target with ur pet on top of him. This is only achieved at master CH

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Nice idea.

but given that currently on TC, the new aggro changes means anything that aggros your pet is coming straight for you , every time, multiple aggro when a pet attacks an agressive means any mobs the pet hasnt hit will ignore it completely and charge straight at you, even if, as I have been, 50m away, with masck scent active, and had not fired a single shot at any of the creatures, coming up with ideas like this is largely irrelavant.

CH is, in effect, unplayable now on test center, against anything but no agressive non social mobs.

sending a pet to attack a red con mob that has friends nearby, or a social mob that is not alone, means you will die. Period.

That is the issue that needs 'balance' , and if it doesnt change, they just killed CH.

And , for the record, the outcry in the test center bug thread was one voice.

Me.

/bump

• Trick 1 and Trick 2 is now obsolete, convert those into some sort of taunt ability so the pet can actually do what a pet is ment to do, tank.


• Pet specials needs to be reintroduced. That has always been the pets main strength and charm.

Message Edited by QuantumArtist on 07-15-2005 03:44 AM

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QuantumArtist wrote:

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valetman wrote:

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K3nsh1n wrote:

Well, i had an idea it would help balance CH a little more and make them not totally useless in pvp either duels or GCW it involves 2 attacks

-Tackle- This entails your pet, assuming it is over CL 20, running down and pouncing on your opponent. This skill works just like underhand shot and is acquired at tier 3 of CH

-Pin- This attack, which is used after Tackle, will leave ur pet on top of the opponent making him unable to stand up for 10 seconds, however the CH cannot attack during this period or it is automatically broken do to the fact that you could not get a cleaar shot at your target with ur pet on top of him. This is only achieved at master CH

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Nice idea.

but given that currently on TC, the new aggro changes means anything that aggros your pet is coming straight for you , every time, multiple aggro when a pet attacks an agressive means any mobs the pet hasnt hit will ignore it completely and charge straight at you, even if, as I have been, 50m away, with masck scent active, and had not fired a single shot at any of the creatures, coming up with ideas like this is largely irrelavant.

CH is, in effect, unplayable now on test center, against anything but no agressive non social mobs.

sending a pet to attack a red con mob that has friends nearby, or a social mob that is not alone, means you will die. Period.

That is the issue that needs 'balance' , and if it doesnt change, they just killed CH.

And , for the record, the outcry in the test center bug thread was one voice.

Me.

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I actually prefere this! I'd much rather tank for my pet because I'm much harder to kill then they are. The longer my pets live, the more collective damage I cause. Take up BH, TK or some other defensive skill to make sure you can contribute to the chaos and survive for longer periods of time and watch your pets really pile on the hurt.

Over time, it is possible for a CH to outdamage the average joe player.

Message Edited by QuantumArtist on 07-15-2005 03:44 AM

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The profession is CH.

NOT CH/TKM or CH/BH.If you need them to survive as a CH, doesnt that infact highlight that the profession is broken?


that is ignorance, what about people who's only combat profession is CH?
You just ignore them?

By the way, when 4 or 5 level 82 mobs are attacking you, and soley you, because your pet aggroed one social or aggro level 82 mob, tkm nor BH is going to help.

And no, that isnt a 'special' occurance, that is what happens if you arrive at a mission lair for level 82 female pickets, and your pet hits one of them.

Message Edited by valetman on 07-15-2005 12:34 PM

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valetman wrote:

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QuantumArtist wrote:

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valetman wrote:

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K3nsh1n wrote:

Well, i had an idea it would help balance CH a little more and make them not totally useless in pvp either duels or GCW it involves 2 attacks

-Tackle- This entails your pet, assuming it is over CL 20, running down and pouncing on your opponent. This skill works just like underhand shot and is acquired at tier 3 of CH

-Pin- This attack, which is used after Tackle, will leave ur pet on top of the opponent making him unable to stand up for 10 seconds, however the CH cannot attack during this period or it is automatically broken do to the fact that you could not get a cleaar shot at your target with ur pet on top of him. This is only achieved at master CH

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Nice idea.

but given that currently on TC, the new aggro changes means anything that aggros your pet is coming straight for you , every time, multiple aggro when a pet attacks an agressive means any mobs the pet hasnt hit will ignore it completely and charge straight at you, even if, as I have been, 50m away, with masck scent active, and had not fired a single shot at any of the creatures, coming up with ideas like this is largely irrelavant.

CH is, in effect, unplayable now on test center, against anything but no agressive non social mobs.

sending a pet to attack a red con mob that has friends nearby, or a social mob that is not alone, means you will die. Period.

That is the issue that needs 'balance' , and if it doesnt change, they just killed CH.

And , for the record, the outcry in the test center bug thread was one voice.

Me.

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I actually prefere this! I'd much rather tank for my pet because I'm much harder to kill then they are. The longer my pets live, the more collective damage I cause. Take up BH, TK or some other defensive skill to make sure you can contribute to the chaos and survive for longer periods of time and watch your pets really pile on the hurt.

Over time, it is possible for a CH to outdamage the average joe player.

Message Edited by QuantumArtist on 07-15-200503:44 AM

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The profession is CH.

NOT CH/TKM or CH/BH.If you need them to survive as a CH, doesnt that infact highlight that the profession is broken?


that is ignorance, what about people who's only combat profession is CH?
You just ignore them?

By the way, when 4 or 5 level 82 mobs are attacking you, and soley you, because your pet aggroed one social or aggro level 82 mob, tkm nor BH is going to help.

And no, that isnt a 'special' occurance, that is what happens if you arrive at a mission lair for level 82 female pickets, and your pet hits one of them.

Message Edited by valetman on 07-15-200512:34 PM

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Message Edited by QuantumArtist on 07-15-2005 06:55 AM

I just wanted to call to your attention that much of this thread sounds very similar to what is being posted in the Test center notes for the upcomming CH stealth revamp.

I told you it can be done! Though the new changes are not exactly what we envisioned in this thread, is it not obvious we had an influence?

Those that have contributed, you have my thanks and I extend a hearty contratulations to your efforts!

Now lets keep the constructive thoughts rolling...

Message Edited by QuantumArtist on 07-31-2005 04:21 AM

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valetman wrote:

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QuantumArtist wrote:

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Noggin-The-Nogg wrote:
I would suggest that a working taunt ability , and fixing the pet pathing(which I beleive may be responsible for the speed issue) and auto store problems would go along way to rejuvenating the profession.

Asking for both offensive and defensive powers is wrong. We had both before, that lead to publish 5.

Because CH can be used at the same time as other professions, it has to be restricted, either damage OR defence. Not both.

I do beleive the announcement of the new pet special system where we can customize pets to a job is the ideal way forward, high damage low defence, high defence low damage.

Anything that gives both at once is just a repeat of the original problem, anyone who was master CH back then, including myself, will not want a repeat performance.

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Thats the whole point of giving CH abilities which are limited. That and it takes far less effort to alter the profession then it does every animal in the game.

Besides, if it turns out that all we get is a slightly customizable pet, with a few weak specials and current pet stats... we're still going to be underpowered. This is mostly due to the fact that the average level 70 pet simply cant compete with a level 80 player, particularly if they're Jedi.

I dont see anything wrong with the suggestions above. Obviously, we shouldnt have all these abilities, but some would sure allow for much easier "adjustments" of our profession in the future. Things change so much in SWG, I'd rather they just alter our special abilities then to go through another patch 7 catastrophy. If you remember patch 7, they altered creatures all over SWG... it castrated the entire game in the process.

The idea is that the creatures themselves are fine as they are (excluding speed and special attack issues). The key to perfecting our profession balance may lie in altering/adding special commands/abilities.

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It was publish 5 we got changed, as the poster you quoted said, just so you know .

They wont change creatures again regardless, that was what the CU was about, Im unsure where you got that idea from to be honest, the creatures we see now are , apart from minor tweaks, what we have.

The pet special system they describe can achieve pretty much everything we would need if done right, until we see the docs its difficult to judge.

However, you say
' This is mostly due to the fact that the average level 70 pet simply cant compete with a level 80 player, particularly if they're Jedi.'

This is the problem, CH is a level 54 skill, and therefore alone it simply shouldnt stand a chance against a level 80 player, especially a jedi as they are deemed 1.5 times more powerful than a level 80 player.

Do you see what you are asking for?
A level 54 profession (your level 70 pet) to be able to compete with a level 80 player.
Thats inbalance in the extreme.

Add in the rifle, carbine or pistol that is the CH's second profession and you are now destroying evryhing in your path, just like pre pub 5, and just like then , the nerfs would come.

The ONLY thing a stand alone CH can be balanced to is level 54, because, despite a pets level, that is what a CH is.

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You know, it just occured to me that our salvation for this problem may lie in the much derided level system! The mechanism to make a level 54 CH less effective then a level 80 is already in place!

You see, there are damage mitigations granted for higher level templates, and anyone in their group. This is why a whole group of level 50s will get hit harder by level 80 monsters until a level 80 joins the group.

Now if we just add in some specials, like they're doing no on TC, we stand a good chance of breaking even with other level 80s!