Creature Handler Archive
Thread: What is SOE's vision for Creature Handler?
My ultimate fear is that the relationship between creature handler and pet in SWG is going to end up closer to that of Magician and pet in Everquest than tamer and pet in UO, and honestly it's becoming more and more clear that that fear is being realized. Rather than being focused around our pets, in combat and otherwise, they are being degraded to the level of simple meat shield, just there to hold creatures off of us long enough for us to blast them to death with our own attacks (blasters in SWG, nuke spells in EQ.). I much preferred the UO (and WoD if Dundee's still creeping around there) scenario, where pets WERE the core of our offense in combat, where our abilities and skills complemented that core focus rather than compensating for its ineffectiveness.
All we are seeing now is a constant flow of nerfs, on every front.
We are finding our abilities to acquire and manage pets being savaged. For instance, the baby nerf which is forcing us to slaughter adults to get babies to spawn for some creatures, killing the fun of carefully hunting around through swarms of aggro trying to find that precious infant critter of whatever species, or worse, has resulted in babies for certain creatures so rare it is possible that they might no longeractually be spawned at all (arachnes of all sorts, kliknik queens, merek harvester kings and queens for example). Also, the level cap has utterly devastated the ultimate reward of being a master creature handler, being able to manage a third creature. Even a second creature can be well, pretty feeble when you consider the gap in performance between a CL20 creature and a CL50. I'm thrilled that novices and dabblers can no longer run around with the premier pets in the game, but this manner of implementation just wasn't the way to do it, given the way creature effectiveness scales with creature level.
At the same time, we are seeing our pets castrated and homogenized. The AR2 nerf is an example. Though I do to some degree understand it, consider the side effect it has on creature variety. Even worse, thestripping of Gnarled Rancor's and certain Mereks' area effect attacks, the erasure of one of the few unique abilities which differentiated these pets from others. Is your ultimate goal to have pets reduced to merely a skin/graphic, HAM and DPS?It really appears that way, and I think that is what has me most disheartened. Variety is a good thing, give us more, not less.
I don't know. Honestly the Star Wars background really never turned me on for a MMORPG. What drew me to SWG though was the ability to relive my favorite aspect of UO, the ability to tame a piece of that virtual world, make it my own. Now though, I'm really beginning to have serious doubts. I wanted to be a creature handler. Not a gunman with a generic meatshield with a pretty graphic. Yet now,these continuednegative changesare leaving little choice in the matter. I'd love to abandon my weapon skills entirely, but seriously, that was not a viable option at release, and is progressively looking even more dismal with each hack of the butchers' cleaver at our profession's and pets' hamstrings.
So roll play and Attacking. That's it?
That's the entire list of other options a pet user (which is everyone) has with pets?
2?
And again everyone in game now has these options. Why go MCH at all?
If erasing us from the map is the goal man just save me the pain now and ocme out and say it. You can save alot of time and aggrovation and me a few bucks.
And how is the armor on a Gurreck more important than my pets not following me?
Or warping mid fight leaving me high and dry?
How is the armor on a rock beetle more important than what's going on with AT-ST's?
Not that you stated that they were more important but actions speak louder than words.
Raph,
You asked me a question. please answer whit honesty.
Thanks,
Sind
Holo... Tell us one thing that you have done recently to make us better other than nerf us so that we come into line with classes like the Commandos?
You say your making strides on these bugs... For most of us they keep getting worse not better.
What have you given us during this time of taking everything away?.... Most of our cammands either don't work half the time or don't work at all.. Other commands are totally obsolete now that you are changing the class.
Name one good thing you have given us as compensation for taking all this away. Just one thing that would in some way balance this and make us same yes... thats why I want to stay with Creature Handler through all of the changes.
CavemanGamer wrote:
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).
I don't know if I'm explaining myself well enough. But I hope you get what I mean.
No, I understand perfectly. But that's where a balance issue comes in. You have enough skill points left over to master quite a lot of combat skills. All of a sudden, you'd have a creature handler who without engaging is a match for an elite guy, and when he does engage, overmatches anyone.
1. Ability to GROW your pet through Fighting an additional 10 levels above it currant max. This might take time to implement, but you would likely have to program all or most of the critters a growth schedule and added abilities. OR this can be done through a SLOT system. As your critter grows it gets slots that can be added with specially made BIO-Engineered permanant power-ups. This gives a little more depth to the BIO-Engineer and gives a functioning way to power up critters growth without too much coding. The power-ups could include anything from more powerful hits to added specials or even increased Ham Bars or increased regen rates. But you can only pick one of any of them so no stacking. Or just make sure there is enough choices to make it a good system.
This SHOULD take a hardcore player 1-2 months to get all ten levels. This would be considered an end-game feature meant to take time to acchieve even for the powergamer.
2. Added Stamps for Management4 and Empathy4 and Master Creature Handler. Stamps are something you can use to permantly increase your pet once. Meaning all critters get 3 Stamp slots of each type. Once these stamps are used the creature is PERMANTLY bonded to you. You can not sale or trade the pet after it has had this done. The stamps could include but does not need to be something like this. Management4 added stamp of +10 ferocity to your creature. This lets you know your pet will stick in battle. Empathy4 added stamp of +5 to all resistant types. Any good handler would have found his pets weaknesses and helped it overcome them. Master Creature Handler added stamp of +1 to armor. The master should have a true tank of a pet especially since it will likely be his last. These are JUST sugesstions. I know they might be an imbalance but I was just giving an idea of what COULD be done here. Make it so that the powers of the Creature Handler grow as he becomes more masterful.
Stars- Master Creatuer Handler
Raph,
I am asking this because I honestly am curious. How does giving everyone the same ability as a Novice CH fit in with the vision you described? The only difference is the Novice CH has the choice of taming or buying their pet, while Non CH's have to buy. As it is, a Novice CH mustacquire 35,000 CH XP before they are different from a non-CH. 
For one thing, this is encouraging people to view creatures as disposable weapons - the vast majority or non-CH's getting pets are doing it so they can get a CL15 2-3k HAM pet to tank and help fight. Further, it is encouraging Novice CH to have to grind XP in order to actually have anything about their profession that is unique. This ruins one of the best things about SWG - you don't have to grind to enjoy the game.
My CH play-style fits into the "pokemon" style you describe ... I enjoy collecting and having pets, and see them as RP companions, not weapons. So, I have found most all the recent CH changes acceptable, but this one just boggles me.
I think there are several things that could be done to make Novice CH actually mean something again:
1) Increase the CL Novice can tame/call (not the best option, IMHO)
2) Reduce the CL non-CHs can call (CL 10 would prevent them from having the tank critters)
3) Disable the Attack command for non-CHs (would cause a lot of gripes, but would mean people buy critters to be actual pets, and not weapons)
4) Give Novice CH additional skill(s) - perhaps a /tendPetWound command that can heal pet wounds or something similar.
Anyway, I would appreciate any feedback on why non-CH's are the same as Novice CHs and if the devs are looking into doing anything to make Novice CH unique again 
Holocron wrote:
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.
There isn't much we can do about affecting the creatures growth, personality, appearance, etc...
If you want a RP creature handler, then creatures need to DO more stuff... they need more personality, other uses besides "attack" and "follow" (which don't always work).
I would trade in my pistol for a shepard's staff if creature handler was viable in combat on it's own.
I'd LOVE to be a weaponless, ranger type, creature handler with like a "ranch" of my own with lots of creatures there, etc.
(The sort of Role-Play CH that the profession COULD be.)
Holocron do you ever read people responces? Its not even logical what you do...
1) MCH already anly uses 1 good pet
2) Pets do only ok damage nothing good, 500 damage with .3 to hit is like 1/4 of damage any combat profecion does.
3) Healing pets is VERY expencive and slow, I need 3k credits to heal a gurreck fron incap to full and it takes about 5 min.
4) There are pets tougher than gurreck even with AR1 like grauls you gonna nerf them to?
5) Pets having only AR1 and permadeath is just silly, you say you dont want they to be disposable but you do everything to make them so.
6) You will NEVER balance 10k HAM pet with players cause player can never outtank 10k MOB, solution? Give players +500HAMs+50 secondary pools for every profesion they takeand same for every profecion they master. If player will have say 5 profecions and master of 2 than he will end up with 4-4.5k HAMs or so now that will balance players vs MOBS.
any illusion of it being an "elite" skill was cleared up by allowing all players to have the same abilities as a novice CH.
OK, if you don't need CH to have a pet, in the future, will you need the skill to have a mount?
and why have the command skill trees been made pointless by allowing pets to retain their commands upon transfer? you can spend much CH exp and skill credits to get commands like group or guard, or you can have someone teach these commands to your pet. then you can use these higher level commands WITHOUT HAVING THE SKILL. that ain't right.
I saw patch notes that stated that you fixed the warping and pathing issues but you haven't. Why not focus on what's broke first then go back and worry about nerfs?
IMHO fixing pet pathing and AI is far more important than the armor on a Gurreck.
Raph,
You asked me a question. I answered you honestly. Can you let us know an answer to the question everyone's been asking for weeks?
"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 think the benefit of achieving MCH should be the original intended benefit of being able to deploy three good creatures. You're reducing the effectiveness of our pets, after allowing MCH's to essentially only deploy one. Holo, I don't know what your "CH dev" is telling you, but one CL 50 pet is better then 2 35's and is sure as gravy better then 3 20ish. Putting such a low cap on the MCH limits him to just one pet .. so it's not that it's failing to give me a sense of reward, it's that you pulled it right out from under my feet.
If you don't think we should have more then one good pet then I want one **edit** good pet .. I mean AR, resists, multiple special attacks, HAM specific attacks, and ranged attacks .. all in one pet. It'd be nice if he ran fast too. What happened to a pet equalling a "maxxed out combat profession"? .. My gurreck can only melee, only has one special attack, does far less damage (even in melee), with a far less chance to hit. Pets have gone from a good addition to a mild annoyance.
A mild annoyance.
From a master of a combat profession.
That's what the problem is.
I want my three good pets back. At least two man .. throw us a frickin bone here.