Creature Handler Archive

Vert,

You know for a fact I would rather see you post than wonder where you are. I think your performance of late is great. And since I know you are working for us, I am trying to work with you by holding back some of the most venomous thoughts I have towards Red Names.

You are correct though, this board has many divisions. Pro-Vert/Anti-Vert. Fanboi/Dissident. PvP/PvE/Tame/Merchant. Newbs who never read the faqs and ask the same question already presented on the page/newbs who read and ask the one question that has not been asked yet. BE's price checking/CH's price checking. Those who will buy JTL/those who will not. Those who want fixes/Those who want content. etc/etc.

It is hard to balance all those and still have an opinion. From what I have witnessed your Top XX lists almost always change to reflect the feedback in the forums.

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Vertexon wrote:

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loonatik wrote:

Vertexon your job is to convey how the creature handler community feels to the developers. Have you not been reading the forums? Do you honestly feel ALLL of these posts are not justified?

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I read this forum every day. I never said or implied that anyone's opinion was invalid just because it disagreed with mine. I'm just joining the discussions and expressing my two cents, because otherwise people mistakenly think I'm an absentee. Strong negative reactions from people who think my differing opinion overules theirs (which isn't true)is exactly why I tried to stay quiet and aloof for all those months. Even now I bite my tongue more than I share my own opinions, and I'm still getting blasted. Look at how this thread has gone off the original topic.

I have fun acting as a CH all the time. I can win battles with my pets, though not with the extreme ease of other combat professions (and not against the same high difficulty opponents). There are interesting things for me to tame, but not nearly as many as I'd like (or think there should be). I ride around on my mounts for the novelty value, but I use my speederbike about 95% of the time (because there's really no advantage to using mounts for me whatsoever, and I'm a Master CH).

I'm passionate about the CH profession, and have a lot of strong opinions about its various facets. I could make a huge post detailing my exactopinions on everything, but it would likely make some folks' blood absolutely boil (and possibly touch off a massive flame war between various subgroups of the community).

My purpose is to filter through noise, not generate more of it. So Itry to focus on representing the interests of the profession as a whole by reading and digesting. That's not easy, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect. After discussions earlier in the year, I do think I was being a little too silent on hot issues, so what you're now seeing is me trying to correct that without going too far in the other direction and creating panic that I'm trying to dictate what's going on. My apologies if I'm meeting with limited success so far.

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Vertexon wrote:

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loonatik wrote:

Vertexon your job is to convey how the creature handler community feels to the developers. Have you not been reading the forums? Do you honestly feel ALLL of these posts are not justified?

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I read this forum every day. I never said or implied that anyone's opinion was invalid just because it disagreed with mine. I'm just joining the discussions and expressing my two cents, because otherwise people mistakenly think I'm an absentee. Strong negative reactions from people who think my differing opinion overules theirs (which isn't true)is exactly why I tried to stay quiet and aloof for all those months. Even now I bite my tongue more than I share my own opinions, and I'm still getting blasted. Look at how this thread has gone off the original topic.

I have fun acting as a CH all the time. I can win battles with my pets, though not with the extreme ease of other combat professions (and not against the same high difficulty opponents). There are interesting things for me to tame, but not nearly as many as I'd like (or think there should be). I ride around on my mounts for the novelty value, but I use my speederbike about 95% of the time (because there's really no advantage to using mounts for me whatsoever, and I'm a Master CH).

I'm passionate about the CH profession, and have a lot of strong opinions about its various facets. I could make a huge post detailing my exactopinions on everything, but it would likely make some folks' blood absolutely boil (and possibly touch off a massive flame war between various subgroups of the community).

My purpose is to filter through noise, not generate more of it. So Itry to focus on representing the interests of the profession as a whole by reading and digesting. That's not easy, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect. After discussions earlier in the year, I do think I was being a little too silent on hot issues, so what you're now seeing is me trying to correct that without going too far in the other direction and creating panic that I'm trying to dictate what's going on. My apologies if I'm meeting with limited success so far.

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Vertexon wrote:

I read this forum every day. I never said or implied that anyone's opinion was invalid just because it disagreed with mine. I'm just joining the discussions and expressing my two cents, because otherwise people mistakenly think I'm an absentee. Strong negative reactions from people who think my differing opinion overules theirs (which isn't true)is exactly why I tried to stay quiet and aloof for all those months. Even now I bite my tongue more than I share my own opinions, and I'm still getting blasted. Look at how this thread has gone off the original topic.

Everyone gets blasted by someone in here Vert, don't take it personally )

I have fun acting as a CH all the time. I can win battles with my pets, though not with the extreme ease of other combat professions (and not against the same high difficulty opponents). There are interesting things for me to tame, but not nearly as many as I'd like (or think there should be). I ride around on my mounts for the novelty value, but I use my speederbike about 95% of the time (because there's really no advantage to using mounts for me whatsoever, and I'm a Master CH).

I think one of the sticking points here is "I can win battles with my pets"(a lot of people say that, soI'm notsingling you outhere).

Yes, we can win battles with our pets. From an Internalised context (taken as an individual player), we are "effective" in that we can finish a lot of PvE fights we start. We can not win battles as fast as other classes though (besides non-combat classes obviously), so in an externalised context we aren't effective. We can function in SWG, we just don't function well.

As SWG is a Multiplayer game, it's important to a lot of people that we function just as effectively in a role as other classes thatfill similar roles to us. If other classes can do things better than us, then what point is there in taking CH? I can win a fight as a CH, but I could win it a lot faster as a TKM without CH...

I'm passionate about the CH profession, and have a lot of strong opinions about its various facets. I could make a huge post detailing my exactopinions on everything, but it would likely make some folks' blood absolutely boil (and possibly touch off a massive flame war between various subgroups of the community).

Perhaps. Personally I'd rather know your "leanings" if your representing me.If people see you as a "Fence Sitter", youcan end up being the target for people from both sides of the fence as well ;o)

My purpose is to filter through noise, not generate more of it. So Itry to focus on representing the interests of the profession as a whole by reading and digesting. That's not easy, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect. After discussions earlier in the year, I do think I was being a little too silent on hot issues, so what you're now seeing is me trying to correct that without going too far in the other direction and creating panic that I'm trying to dictate what's going on. My apologies if I'm meeting with limited success so far.

You may be a correspondent, but while your still a member of the CH communityyou have the right to your own opinion (IMHO )) I also thinkpart of the correspondent role is to generate discussion on relevant topics, and to avoid posting to avoid "flamewars" is a bit of a cop out. Glad to see you've decided not to [cop out that is] ;o) For what it's worth, you seem to do a lot better at it than some other corresondents...

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Things I'd like to see:

- BE made pet buff packs for constitution and stamina. CHs get an EnhancePet command to use these on anyone's pet.

- The Enrage command adds armor piercing to pet attacks.

- CH specials that cost HAM and add damage multipliers to the next pet attack, or increase a pets defenses for a short time.

- Tameable creatures with normal attacks that do something other than Kinetic damage.

- Some sanity to the level of BE created pets.

I think we are going to have to wait until the combat balance for any changes, though. One of the reasons creature handlers are unbalanced now, is because all tameable creatures are easier to kill than they should be, because the weapon and combat balance has yet to take place. At least that's what we were told. My worry is that the weapon and combat balance will just make players more powerful, in comparison to creatures, in an attempt to escalate combat in this game.

I think there should be CH pets that are as fast as Vehicles or nearly so. Perhaps they could add Creature Speed mods into the CH tree.

I'd also like to be able to call a Mount seperately from my Combat pets.

I loved collecting pets the most. I would like to have a storage solution, even if the stored pets could not be used by anyone but me. If it were a Barn or Zoo Storage Building that would be ok with me.

A higher level of max combined pets that can be used. Give Master Level Creature Handlers quests that will be worth doing.

The ability to call a Mount seperately from my combat pets.

Some cool CH only mounts, Cats that are as fast as speeders or Flying ones. These would enhance the class and make it more fun.

I think Master Creature Handlers should get Bonuses to combat when working with pets, better defences and so on.

"Ryyger makes an excellent point. I can and am asking for the "sun, moon, and stars." Big things don't happen fast, though. So it is logical to also ask for smaller things that might be doable sooner to tide us over."

How do you know what is easy or hard and can or can not be done without asking. Proper Diplomacy is to ask for more than you want and Negotiate to what you can accept. Saying we are mostly OK means, "let's take care of the loud classes first"

Creature Handling is one of the most loved classes in the game. Isn't it worth making it more fun to play?

I am a Swordsman also and I've almost given up on using my pets.

I am new to CH and SWG. I've been doingCH about a week and SWG about 3 weeks and having a blast. After reading this threadthe thing that is the most disconcerting to me is that what I'm capturing is useless. I was very interested in trying to capture enough mounts that me and my friends could play out some of our star wars fantasies like riding our banthas across the desert single file so we can hide our numbers. When I found out this wasn't possible because only CH can manage creatures of that level it was a bit disappointing but also rewarding to think I could do something the medic and brawler couldn't.

Now I read that not only can they get BE modified creatures but creatures far more powerful and artificially lowered in level. So to me the biggest thing should be to remove the ability for a BE to create absurdly high level creatures at extremely lower levels. A non CH simply should not be able to have a rancor or for that matter any higher level creature.

I'm still having fun riding my cu pa and using a spare one for help in harvesting low level herbivores but what's the real purpose of a CH if a BE created creature will beat what we can tame every time and provide non-CH with those same enhanced creatures?

As for accruing skill boxes, all I can say is its going a whole lot faster than that scout survival 4 skill. Tenting takes too dang long!

I will add some suggestion from another my post. Here seems the right place to put ideas.

Seems to me that the pets are and could be only used for combat

I have some ideas for non combat pet:

Entertaining pet:

there are some beatiful little pet that could be an addition to any entertainer, colored birds, monkeys, rabbits, maybe a snake.. if only these pet give to the entertainer some bonus to his/her abilities.

Tracking pets

These pets could be dogs or great cats, that boost the tracking/investigation ability of a Ranger or a Bounty Hunter

Fatigue pets

These pets could be large pet (gronda,brackaset)that help to transport objects (not if they are in your datapad) or can help to move structures like harvesters and buildings,reducing the mainteneance cost to redeed.

Resource pet

These pets could be producer of some resource (milk, egg, wool) that the owner could harvest from time to time or like a harvester.

I was thinking more about my CH vs. BE pet post. Since removing the ability to create pets that non-CH can use will probably cause a huge uproar how about this. If a person is using a creature who's natural or wild level is abovethe level they can normally manage there is a chance the animal either runs away or turns on the owner. It stands to reason that they are trying to manage something they aren't trained for. The larger the difference between the natural and engineeredlevels the greater the chance of a mishap. Engineered or not it still has instincts and the handler doesn't have the experience to deal with those natural instincts.

This puts risk in using an engineered pet that has a significantly lowered difficulty level without removing them from the game. It also falls in line with theway a weapon used by someone uncertified will do far less damage than in the hands of a trained professional. What we have today is a complete loophole around the skill = access model of the rest of the game.

Armor for pets

Think on this guys...... The rebels are massing for an offensive against your base. Ur buffed and rdy to go. The little red triangles start appearing on the map. (Yousmile to yourself... u just made Master Creature Handler yesterday and you cant wait to send ur brand new kimo into battle to crush some rebs). The triangles move in. U pull out ur very visually impressing pet and send it into battle. You watch as its health suddenly begins to drop rapidly as little red sizzly bolts the size of its teeth touch it. Then comes the tkms ans fencers (by this time your pet is already at half health). One of the puny figures pokes ur monster with a stick and your creature flops to the ground where it stays as its health disapears. And u wonder "what the hell happened my kimo didnt even land a hit".

/shrug

Something has really got to be done about this. I mean, whats the point of having creatures the size of small houses if they killed in the first 30 seconds of the battle.