Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Suggestions for Creature Handler, please offer constructive input.
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Dustin_Asche
Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:11 pm
#1
CH was overpowered and overpopular early in the game's launch. Now it's slightly underpowered, unuseful (since there are now non-ch tanks and droid tanks for combat grinding), and unpopular (large, laggy critters).
Here are some ideas that I think might help bring CH back into popularity, without targetting it for another nerf (and let's face it, better a slight improvement than a major improvement that the devs will simply yank away as soon as one **edit** complains):
-Reduce the number of very large creatures that can be tamed. These weren't always the most powerful pets, and their size and noise annoys other players. The size factor was never impressive by itself because mass never equates to power in this game. By reducing the number of large creatures that can be tamed, the lag and noise that people dislike about CH will be greatly reduced (and who's going to say "hey, put that noisy, laggy beast away" to a CH toting around a huge Rancor?), the indimidation factor of a large pet will increase (because who's afraid of Fambaas or Ravenous Tortons?), and the stigma of CH's as nothing but Torton stompers will be lifted.
-Slightly increase the combat prowess of CH. Now, I never really saw the CH as a combat profession, and I was amongst those who screamed for it to be nerfed, I'll admit. But as it is right now, composite armor, a good blaster and a set of master doc buffs is enough to destroy a CH's toughest pets in moments flat. So either the rest of combat needs to be toned down without touching CH so that CH is competitive again, or it needs something to make it slightly stronger. The Rancor should definitely get a power boost, since as it stands it is almost invariably better to have two frenzied grauls than one Racnor, same damage output between them with a good 7k-8K more HAM total.
-Give CH pets other stuff to do. /Fetch could retrieve the corpses of dead animals for resource harvesting similar to a medic's drag incap'd player ability. Additional tricks could act like an entertainer slowly healing mind wounds of players who watch. Plus they'd just be cool to watch (CH circus act, anyone?)
-Slow the rate of growth and increase the amount of time it takes to train pets, especially for really nasty critters like a Rancor. A Rancor should take upwards of a month to grow and train, because rancor taming was NOT COMMON PRACTICE IN STARWARS. Make pets learn tricks in inrcriments: at 50% a pet would obey the command 50% of the time, with masters being able to train anything to 100% (except maybe Rancors, just for fun). Also make it so there is a 3 second timer between being able to issue a pet commands so that people don't just spam until they get it. There could also be an effective cap of 75% for non-CH owned pets because a pet is less likely to obey some stranger than the person who raised it and trained it.
-Counteract the slower training and growth of creatures by increasing the XP output so that XP is actually earned at the same rate as before, by giving "growing XP" for growing pets and training xp for each time a pet learns an incriment of a trick.
Any other ideas?
TheLoneBowler
Sat Jun 12, 2004 9:20 pm
#2
Dustin_Asche wrote:
CH was overpowered and overpopular early in the game's launch. Now it's slightly underpowered, unuseful (since there are now non-ch tanks and droid tanks for combat grinding), and unpopular (large, laggy critters).
Here are some ideas that I think might help bring CH back into popularity, without targetting it for another nerf (and let's face it, better a slight improvement than a major improvement that the devs will simply yank away as soon as one **edit** complains):
-Reduce the number of very large creatures that can be tamed. These weren't always the most powerful pets, and their size and noise annoys other players. The size factor was never impressive by itself because mass never equates to power in this game. By reducing the number of large creatures that can be tamed, the lag and noise that people dislike about CH will be greatly reduced (and who's going to say "hey, put that noisy, laggy beast away" to a CH toting around a huge Rancor?), the indimidation factor of a large pet will increase (because who's afraid of Fambaas or Ravenous Tortons?), and the stigma of CH's as nothing but Torton stompers will be lifted.
I am against removing the number of anything that can be tamed. We need more creatures, not less. I am not sure what computers other people have, but the size of a creature has never affected me as far as lag goes. Small creatures have just as many polygons as large ones in most cases. However, I would like to see large pets be more powerful.
-Slightly increase the combat prowess of CH. Now, I never really saw the CH as a combat profession, and I was amongst those who screamed for it to be nerfed, I'll admit. But as it is right now, composite armor, a good blaster and a set of master doc buffs is enough to destroy a CH's toughest pets in moments flat. So either the rest of combat needs to be toned down without touching CH so that CH is competitive again, or it needs something to make it slightly stronger. The Rancor should definitely get a power boost, since as it stands it is almost invariably better to have two frenzied grauls than one Racnor, same damage output between them with a good 7k-8K more HAM total.
Combat Balance, etc. They stated that CH would be one of the only professions NOT nerfed in the combat rebalance.
-Give CH pets other stuff to do. /Fetch could retrieve the corpses of dead animals for resource harvesting similar to a medic's drag incap'd player ability. Additional tricks could act like an entertainer slowly healing mind wounds of players who watch. Plus they'd just be cool to watch (CH circus act, anyone?)
I like the drag idea.
-Slow the rate of growth and increase the amount of time it takes to train pets, especially for really nasty critters like a Rancor. A Rancor should take upwards of a month to grow and train, because rancor taming was NOT COMMON PRACTICE IN STARWARS. Make pets learn tricks in inrcriments: at 50% a pet would obey the command 50% of the time, with masters being able to train anything to 100% (except maybe Rancors, just for fun). Also make it so there is a 3 second timer between being able to issue a pet commands so that people don't just spam until they get it. There could also be an effective cap of 75% for non-CH owned pets because a pet is less likely to obey some stranger than the person who raised it and trained it.
I'm not sure I like anything in this paragraph. Rancors maybe should be harder to tame, and be more powerful, but not take longer to grow.3 second timer- hate it. 75% cap- CH already has a practically non-existent ability to make money. This would hurt it even more. (Is this possible?)
-Counteract the slower training and growth of creatures by increasing the XP output so that XP is actually earned at the same rate as before, by giving "growing XP" for growing pets and training xp for each time a pet learns an incriment of a trick.
Any other ideas?
Seiryuu
Sat Jun 12, 2004 9:33 pm
#3
No offense, but implementing most of these would cause the few remaining handlers to leave for good.
- Large creatures - We have few enough wild pets worth taming. We are trying to increase that number, not reduce it. Also a lot of the high-end pets are large, which leaves us little choice but to tame them. If we get substitutes then okay, but that means introducing a whole new slew of creatures. (Also when given the choice, most handlers will go for a smaller pet. Yes, there are exceptions, but most will.)
- Increased combat prowess - Done. With the combat revamp the other professions will be hit so hard their heads will spin for months. Only our increase is a relativistic one. We are not moving.
- More stuff - Definately a good idea, but CH is bottom of the barrel for receiving attention because we received it months ago. Plus every creature in existance would need new animations for new tricks. New functionality will have to rely on not needing new animations.
- Growth changes - No. Should guns have a chance of misfiring at an equal rate, too? We suffer a delay in being able to use pets while any other profession can instantly access the tools they have the skills to use. Some delay is okay, but extending it just adds more frustration. Growth also requires logging in every day, so making this take a month means a casual player may have to wait a year for a pet to grow.
- XP increase - How does this benefit masters? I have been one since August. My xp has been capped since around September. What do I get to counteract these new 'features'? Any compensation needs to cut across the profession and not be solely for those progressing.
I appreciate wanting to come up with new ideas. That is all well and good. However I feel most handlers would like to see us function before worring about new features that are a very long ways off before implemnting.
- Large creatures - We have few enough wild pets worth taming. We are trying to increase that number, not reduce it. Also a lot of the high-end pets are large, which leaves us little choice but to tame them. If we get substitutes then okay, but that means introducing a whole new slew of creatures. (Also when given the choice, most handlers will go for a smaller pet. Yes, there are exceptions, but most will.)
- Increased combat prowess - Done. With the combat revamp the other professions will be hit so hard their heads will spin for months. Only our increase is a relativistic one. We are not moving.
- More stuff - Definately a good idea, but CH is bottom of the barrel for receiving attention because we received it months ago. Plus every creature in existance would need new animations for new tricks. New functionality will have to rely on not needing new animations.
- Growth changes - No. Should guns have a chance of misfiring at an equal rate, too? We suffer a delay in being able to use pets while any other profession can instantly access the tools they have the skills to use. Some delay is okay, but extending it just adds more frustration. Growth also requires logging in every day, so making this take a month means a casual player may have to wait a year for a pet to grow.
- XP increase - How does this benefit masters? I have been one since August. My xp has been capped since around September. What do I get to counteract these new 'features'? Any compensation needs to cut across the profession and not be solely for those progressing.
I appreciate wanting to come up with new ideas. That is all well and good. However I feel most handlers would like to see us function before worring about new features that are a very long ways off before implemnting.
Seiryuu
Sat Jun 12, 2004 9:43 pm
#4
Oh, yes. Creatures causing lag is a horrible misconception. (The noise and screen shaking are valid complaints.)
A creature has: 1) Variable Size 2) Pre-Defined Type 3) Alpha Texture to apply color.
A player has: 1) Species 2) Hair 3) Hair Color 4) Skin Color 5) Multiple Facial Features 6) Body Type 7) Height 8) Clothing (Hat, Chest, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hands, Pants, Boots, and necklace) in hundreds of combinations 9) Clothing color 10) Weapon
I could have my entire datapad out and not cause the 'lag' that one other player does.
A creature has: 1) Variable Size 2) Pre-Defined Type 3) Alpha Texture to apply color.
A player has: 1) Species 2) Hair 3) Hair Color 4) Skin Color 5) Multiple Facial Features 6) Body Type 7) Height 8) Clothing (Hat, Chest, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hands, Pants, Boots, and necklace) in hundreds of combinations 9) Clothing color 10) Weapon
I could have my entire datapad out and not cause the 'lag' that one other player does.
LyteFoot
Sun Jun 13, 2004 8:15 am
#5
I'm sick of hearing about large pet lag. As is pointed out it is not a real factor. I'll remove my large pets when I don't have to put up with spam lag outside coronet. I get sick of not being able to enjoy the visuals around the starport and cantina because of all the big chat bubbles. Even turning those off you still get lag from all the data flying at your chat window and you certainly can't carry on a conversation. Thank goodness I'm on teamspeak with my friends and don't rely on the chat window for those conversations.
The rest of the ideas just won't fly, this profession is already one of the longest to level unless you spend all your time hunting for babies. The profession offers little to no income potential and now you want to make the few non-CH pets that we can find homes for less reliable for the buyer.
I'm sorry but your suggestions really look like you don't like CH and are trying to nerf us further.
The rest of the ideas just won't fly, this profession is already one of the longest to level unless you spend all your time hunting for babies. The profession offers little to no income potential and now you want to make the few non-CH pets that we can find homes for less reliable for the buyer.
I'm sorry but your suggestions really look like you don't like CH and are trying to nerf us further.
dragon90
Sun Jun 13, 2004 9:18 am
#6
some good ideas,but i must agree make the lrge pets much stronger,i drop whole fambaa lairs jsut for fun unbuffed with my bare hands in 5 minutes or less,fambaas are huge lizard creatures,they should be at least 25k HAM with some better resists and be almost impossible to KD,especially for me since i do it,with my bare hands,rancors should be upwards 50k HAM with 65-70% kinetic,qoute "their body is covered in think,bony armor" endqoute,dont know if thats exact,but somethign to the sort from one of the dathomirian loading screens,tortons should go same as fambaa,as of now if i want a CL34 creature i have a BE make me a gnort (theyre sure fun to have with 9.5k ham,suprise alot of people seeing a little pup bouncing towards them and hitting them for 300) with fambaa DNA,creatures should take slightly longer to grow,the stronger the longer,but only if the devs actually make them stronger...
i dunno,thats just my 2 credits...
Dustin_Asche
Sun Jun 13, 2004 9:35 am
#7
Okay, so this is why I asked for input. You guys seem to be generally for:
-Increasing the power of the Rancor and making it harder to tame/rarer in compensation, so that it's more viable as a pet to actually use instead of just a "trophy pet" when you are more likely to whip out a couple of Frenzied Grauls in combat.
-Adding new stuff for pets to do (kinda like the way droids got a whole bunch of new gadgets) but seem doubtful the Devs will give it any attention. I'm surprised that the /fetch idea was taken better than the tricks as entertainer healing idea (which was my personal favorite) but both would be a nice addition.
-Increased power vs. other professions (although this is going to happen with the combat rebalance anyway, as CH is one of the only professions not getting cut down, because it already did).
And generally against:
-making creatures take longer to grow or train, especially since casual players might require weeks to grow a single creature to full size.
-increasing the XP output per creature to compensate for slower growth and training because Masters have no need for this (although it might make the profession more inviting for new CHs, I remind you).
-Reducing the number of very large creatures that can be tamed, because there are already very few creatures tameable, unless additional creatures are implimented to replace these. (I mostly meant the lower level large creatures like the Fambaa and Tortons, but okay, whatever).
I assure you I am not trying to secretly nerf CH further under the guise of getting a boost in power/functionality. I'd like to see CH become a more effective and common (though not flavor-of-the-month common) profession than it is now. Also, a lot of you seem worried about the saleability of pets and the ability to make money as a CH. It strikes me that compared to most combat professions Creature Handler is relatively low-cost by itself, but income is still an issue that might be addressed. Since most CHs use the profession as a combat support class (nice big tanks for hunting) I would think that after combat rebalance the CH's ability to run missions would be on par with other combat templates, but that has yet to be seen.
Kyreal
Sun Jun 13, 2004 1:46 pm
#8
frenzied grauls while rumored to be back as a tamable pet, have yet to be confirmed found since the dec patch. as far as im concerned they are a continued extinct and only the CH's that happened to tame them before the big nerf will have them available to use. personally i was just given a Frenzied graul out of the generosity of my guild's premier Doctor after he struck a deal to obtain him and a couple of other extincts/rares. I am more of a Cat lover myself, their speed, their willingness to stand in there and fight and not run off that much just work for my playstyle. Grauls are annoying so only the frenzied will ever see my datapad 
i would love to see some new things added to pets functionality like being able to store 5 items in a saddlebag on mounts or something, but the bugs that this profession has endured need to be fixed before adding more potential bug infesting content. Auto-storing, pathing problems, ranged toggle not working entirely correctly, pets trying to find an ideal range instead of standing in and fighting.... among other things.
the combat revamp is going to hit everyone in the gonads, i dont think people realize just how different this game is going to be when they release it onto the test server. the crying and whining will be 100 times worse than it is now, because everyone has done got used to having their 3k buffs, their superpowerful armor and high damage weapons, which allow them to solo most content in the game. gone will be the 80-90 percent armor, buffs will most likely be dropped to maybe 1k per bar, specials will not be able to be spammed continually and so on and so forth. What this will do for CH is give us a purpose in group hunting to provide the tanks to keep the group members safe from harm, though ofc melee peeps will still be able to tank, they better have some good stimpacks, cuz they will definately be taking tons more damage than they do now.
as for tamable pets, i agree with Tivo and alot of the others here that we should be able to tame all pets under CL70, theres no reason why we as Masters cannot have any of these creatures. variety is fun imo.
taloncard
Sun Jun 13, 2004 2:25 pm
#9
Dustin_Asche wrote:
Okay, so this is why I asked for input. You guys seem to be generally for:
-Increasing the power of the Rancor and making it harder to tame/rarer in compensation, so that it's more viable as a pet to actually use instead of just a "trophy pet" when you are more likely to whip out a couple of Frenzied Grauls in combat.
Has not been seen since the extinction of them
-Adding new stuff for pets to do (kinda like the way droids got a whole bunch of new gadgets) but seem doubtful the Devs will give it any attention. I'm surprised that the /fetch idea was taken better than the tricks as entertainer healing idea (which was my personal favorite) but both would be a nice addition.
been suggested many times
-Increased power vs. other professions (although this is going to happen with the combat rebalance anyway, as CH is one of the only professions not getting cut down, because it already did).
Not holding my breath on this one, I predict something somehow will be nerfed.
And generally against:
-making creatures take longer to grow or train, especially since casual players might require weeks to grow a single creature to full size.
Damn straight
-increasing the XP output per creature to compensate for slower growth and training because Masters have no need for this (although it might make the profession more inviting for new CHs, I remind you).
This is helpful in grinding to master but like many other combat professions what is there after master.
-Reducing the number of very large creatures that can be tamed, because there are already very few creatures tameable, unless additional creatures are implimented to replace these. (I mostly meant the lower level large creatures like the Fambaa and Tortons, but okay, whatever).
If you looked back you would see one of the biggest complaints of CH is a lack of pets to tame, it gets booring after a while. One of the reasons I gave up MCH was been there tamed that what next? The quest for the rares?
I assure you I am not trying to secretly nerf CH further under the guise of getting a boost in power/functionality. I'd like to see CH become a more effective and common (though not flavor-of-the-month common) profession than it is now. Also, a lot of you seem worried about the saleability of pets and the ability to make money as a CH. It strikes me that compared to most combat professions Creature Handler is relatively low-cost by itself, but income is still an issue that might be addressed. Since most CHs use the profession as a combat support class (nice big tanks for hunting) I would think that after combat rebalance the CH's ability to run missions would be on par with other combat templates, but that has yet to be seen.
talk to me in 8 months when the revamp is done (basis of this statement, the "sandbox" of chosen few people to test the CV is expected with patch 10, then it takes a few months to go to TC then another few months to go live.)
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