Creature Handler Archive

edit*** just saw sky's reply... i'm the blue and pink writing, Ranye in the orange and white stuff... and does that badge require 9 years of consecutive play or if you take a month off does it start all over???

Message Edited by Wabit on 09-14-2004 11:43 PM

Message Edited by raynedog on 09-16-2004 03:34 PM

I really like the comparison of pets to armor rather than weapons -- lets face it, you have to be *extremely* patient to consider CH to be a standalone combat profession, but using pets defensively is easy. I have been in favor of removing the timer, but the more I think about the pets as armor aspect, the more I like the idea of pursuing an alternative.

From my perspective at least, the main problem with the timer is that pets cannot keep up with vehicles. Any time I go group hunting, I need to recall and store pets at every stop. I realize that I could put up a camp and avoid the timer, but I feel like that is just a fairly poor way to give camps a purpose, and doesn't really make any sense. To solve the delay problem without resorting to camps, I see two possible solutions. Either the timer has to go, or pets have to be able to keep up with vehicles.

If the timer goes, there are potential problems with exploits. Most of these are very minor, but I can see how some of them could create problems.

Pets being able to keep up with vehicles could also have problems, but they are all avoidable. I think it would work to have an "owner in vehicle" boolean variable, and have a conditional saying that if this is true, all of your pets get their max speed set to slightly over the speed of your ride. To prevent people from sitting on their ride and sending off their superfast pet into battle or to chase after someone in PvP, this would need to be paired with a condition stating that the pet reverts to standard speed if it is in combat, as well. Something like this psuedocode:

if( ownerOnVehicle AND NOT petInCombat ) pet.setMaxSpeed(vehicleSpeed * 1.05);

This would allow pets to keep up and stick with you between missions, and would leave in the protection against "surprise pulls" and "store before losing vitality" problems that the devs seem loathe to forego.

Message Edited by Ekaw on 10-23-2004 07:27 AM

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Masen wrote:

Instead- wait timers. Who's idea was that? You should dock his pay for the month, seriously. That's a horribly unnecissary nerf on an already crippled profession.

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what nerf are we talking about... if you mean the time way back when we could call creatures without delay outside of combat (nov last year i think it was)... that was a temp fix for when autostoring was alot more common... before that it was a camp restriction, and after that it was a camp restriction...

the 15 sec didn't come around till much later... the 60 sec after combat has always been there... the no calling in combat has always been there... at least if i rememeber correctly...

the balance with the store timer is, you can't have doc/MCH/combat prof... but thats effectively what you are doing by storing your pets... the bleed, poisions, diseases go away once stored... 2 secs later call it out and the DOT is gone... add in the fact that you need 0 medic to heal a pets wounds/HAM...

the no calling during combat makes sence cause with a full datapad at master you'd still have a virtually unlimited meat sheild... think about it fill you data pad with cl 35 (or 23) BE pets... always have 2 out constantly cycle pets out as they get beat up... that means you could possably have 4 'weapons' or 'armor out at one time... one gets beat up, store it, call a new weapon/armor out... the whole time you and your other 2 weapons/armor keep up the attack...

with an intimidated canyon krayt a AR1 60% kin resist pet can last 2 mins before its about dead... a speed capped MRifleman can kill this same dragon in less than one dose of moun (10 mins)... so have 2 of these pets out let the first one get incaped (so you can store it), have the second pet attack when the first gets low... then wait the 15 secs while the other one tanks, you keep shooting... call the 3rd pet out and repeat the cycle...

now this brings virtually no risk to the CH and could be done without buffs other than secondary stat foods and no use of armor...

the way its set up now at least there is some risk to the CH... you at least have to peace out, drop a tent, call pet, disband camp... then get back to the attack again... and 60 secs is just right for the store timer... 15 secs is fine... it allows CH's not to have to use tents, but can be worked around by useing them...

everyone is in such a hurry now... when we used to walk everywhere we called out pets in the outpost and off we went... so the calling before combat wasn't as big of an issue, and was only one because of the stupid pet forgetting how to walk straight, boundry issues (hated those), and the more frequent autostoring...

i honestly don't see the timers going away or being reduced... there are too many systems in place already that allow workarounds...

CH is crippled to what it once was yes, but it is still a very viable prof... can anyone name me one template that will allow me to kill a GDK unbuffed and unarmoredwithout CH in there??? i can name 2 that have CH in there from personal experiance... and that was useing aarcrhne queen clone, so not even the best BE stats out there, and only one pet... just food for thought...

Wabit