Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Thunderhearts own words about the CH Nerf. (Also called The Great Lie)
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P9M
Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:21 pm
#1
"Oh my…sir, he says there are several creatures approaching" Pt.
Thunderheart wrote:
Players have seen a rise in pet usage over the past few weeks because obviously, having a pet in a Massively Multiplayer game has a fantastic advantage. Players with pets essentially get their own private MOBs (Mobile Object) to fight with them and for them. It's a player's own personal tank and it's a boost to damage and attack, a blocker for attackers and the list of advantages go on. With that being said, that's all fun stuff, so we want to keep it in and keep it fun, but make it balanced. If you are curious, there is an easy way to test how imbalanced this can get. If a player and their pet can do a whole lot of things that a two players CAN'T do, then something is wrong. Otherwise, pets become replacements for multiple players. Go out with your friends who are Creature Handlers or who have really powerful pets and play the differences with them.
I guess TKA tanking Rancors is Ok and fun according to the Devs, Commando? BH? Pistoleer? Rifleman? JEDI????
Thanks for showing us were we really stood CH. LIE 1 Devs 0
Another issue that is being addressed is that Non-Creature Handlers have pets that are of such level and ability that it is a free pass into higher level content. Those two advantages alone are an invitation for every player to have pets. In any MMO, that invitation passes by word-of-mouth like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and it cause a stampede.
Can we say UBER BE pets now allow the ex-dabblers to use no skill points to accomplish the same? LIE 2 Devs 0
These are great advantages to have and a lot of players are leveraging these advantages (a huge number actually). Now, in the rush to claim this glorious, imbalanced prize, players are hitting the Creature Handler Skill tree pretty hard. Players are smart and they talk to each other and what's happened is that players are exploiting the Creature Handler Skill Tree by taking ONLY the left-most two columns to get the pets and that's it. So for the cost of two skill trees, players are getting full pet access. That bargain is too good to be true and it demeans the CH profession because they work through the whole tree without being rewarded much of an advantage.
Yeah players are smart. They do not use skill points now. No one dabbles CH period. No skill points useage, yep you showed them dabblers. LIE 3 Devs 0
Let me be clear here: it is not the Creature Handler Profession that is over-powered per se. It is the Creature Handler “dabblers” that are using two specific skill trees (in conjunction with out of balance creatures) to give over-powered boosts to other professions.
Oh boy. We CH were not the problem. But you broke us anyway. LIE 4 Devs 0
The goal of the change to the CH profession is the idea of reserving power to players who _truly_ master being a creature handler and make it so they have to really invest in all the skill boxes while reducing the power of "dabblers" and people spending the bare minimum to get the advantages of having powerful pets.
Yeah we were but out on the reservation alright. Everyone's power got reduced. LIE 5 Devs 0
So here are the proposed changes.
There are only three new behaviors that have been added at this point: useSpecial1, useSpecial2 and useRanged. This way, you can order a creature with a ranged attack to use his ranged attack, or order them to use the special attack on-command. This makes things simpler and easier to use and a lot more fun.
Works very sporadically even as a master. Yeah there is a lot of fun in counting on a pet to not work.
LIE 6 Devs 0
With all of these changes, that leaves an interesting challenge on the table: CHs currently don't take on the full risk of a combat encounter like other combat classes do. CHs don't have to deal with taking damage or fending off monsters since the monster is engaged by the creature like other combat classes have to deal with.
Because of this, one of the concerns is that while this plan does bring CHs down a bit, it doesn't necessarily put them on equal footing with the other combat classes. The big question is why would a player not be a CH if they wanted the most offensive power possible?
Here is what we're going to do to address that: NPCs and creatures will get just a tiny bit smarter, and will realize that when you send a pet to attack them, _you_ are attacking them. This doesn't mean that they will instantly and always ignore your pet and head straight for you, but they won't just completely ignore you, either. And if they kill your pet, they'll definitely be attacking you next.
Also, if you heal a pet that is fighting something else, that other creature will "see" it and might choose to respond to that action by attacking you. Probably not a very big chance of that happening, but they won't just completely ignore you as they do now.
Yep. This really made sense. Pets run in combat. Pets got nerfed. And we needed additional agro. Smart move Devs, I see the fun in that. LIE 7 Devs 0
On the upside, Creature Handlers can train Mounts. Player mounts have been added and can now ride Bols, Brackasets, Kaadu, Carrion Spats, Dewbacks, and Falumpasets. To get a mount, mounts must be your pet AND trained as a mount. Creature Handlers will be training the mounts and players can either buy them as trained mounts or players with pets can take their pets to a Creature Handler (with the correct skill) to be trained as a mount. Bio Engineers can create mountable pets but can't automatically train them unless they have Creature Handler skills.
Oh sweet mounts should be cool. Oh you meant the mounts were going to be so pathetic for practical use that no one would want them. LIE 8 Devs 0
Another benefit to all of this is that players will be seeing more types of babies spawning. Before, the number of baby spawns was limited due to balance issues and now we can open that up. In addition to making more types of babies spawn, we're also going to add "rare" baby types that spawn very infrequently. We are also increasing the number of stored pets for master-creature handlers.
We got stored pets increased. YAH!! I will give partial credit for this one, because no one has really seen an increased amount of pets. LIE 8.5 Devs .5
In summary, the Creature Handler Profession has been changed to bring it into better balance with the rest of the professions, it is simpler to use and more equitable for the players who are Creature Handlers. People who are not Creature Handlers don't get all the benefits of the profession by climbing an uneven skill tree.
Yanno. This would have been a great idea if you only placed the additional pet levels through different trees. Of course, we all know you did not and thusly shafted the CH. LIE 9.5 Devs .5
With that being said, Creature Handling is the most popular profession so these changes were considered with great effort to keeping things fun to play and keeping them balanced in a Massively Multiplayer World.
Yeah you considered everything. You considered you were lying to us the whole time you parroted the now infamous combat rebalance. We should hit a year soon before it happens. LOL. I would be very suprised if any of you make it to work on time with these great time telling skills. LIE 10.5 Devs .5
We hope you like the changes and I look forward to hearing your input.
We did not enjoy the changes. And of course you did not like our input. You do not even care that we give input. You have not shown your face on the CH boards since you destroyed us. That is cool. LIE 11.5 Devs .5
In the end, this is where the Veteran CH's stand. Still waiting. Having been lied to by TH. None of the other Devs take any blame for this act. Excusing themselves with some other hot project. Nothing should be hotter than the faces of those who perpetuated and participated in this lie. TH since you must take all the heat maybe these other clowns should give you their paychecks. They have done nothing to help you or help the game in general.
I dare a RED Name to prove me wrong. Of course they cannot because it was all lies to begin with. Nothing but nothing will change the fact they crippled our fun. When the fan bois ask why we are so tweaked about this maybe they can review honestly at how much dmage the Devs did indeed do. Nothing short of reinstating CH to its original form should be acceptable to the Devs. WOW. If I lied this much to people I felt responsible to I would hope they all would leave me.
Thunderheart wrote:
Players have seen a rise in pet usage over the past few weeks because obviously, having a pet in a Massively Multiplayer game has a fantastic advantage. Players with pets essentially get their own private MOBs (Mobile Object) to fight with them and for them. It's a player's own personal tank and it's a boost to damage and attack, a blocker for attackers and the list of advantages go on. With that being said, that's all fun stuff, so we want to keep it in and keep it fun, but make it balanced. If you are curious, there is an easy way to test how imbalanced this can get. If a player and their pet can do a whole lot of things that a two players CAN'T do, then something is wrong. Otherwise, pets become replacements for multiple players. Go out with your friends who are Creature Handlers or who have really powerful pets and play the differences with them.
I guess TKA tanking Rancors is Ok and fun according to the Devs, Commando? BH? Pistoleer? Rifleman? JEDI????
Thanks for showing us were we really stood CH. LIE 1 Devs 0
Another issue that is being addressed is that Non-Creature Handlers have pets that are of such level and ability that it is a free pass into higher level content. Those two advantages alone are an invitation for every player to have pets. In any MMO, that invitation passes by word-of-mouth like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and it cause a stampede.
Can we say UBER BE pets now allow the ex-dabblers to use no skill points to accomplish the same? LIE 2 Devs 0
These are great advantages to have and a lot of players are leveraging these advantages (a huge number actually). Now, in the rush to claim this glorious, imbalanced prize, players are hitting the Creature Handler Skill tree pretty hard. Players are smart and they talk to each other and what's happened is that players are exploiting the Creature Handler Skill Tree by taking ONLY the left-most two columns to get the pets and that's it. So for the cost of two skill trees, players are getting full pet access. That bargain is too good to be true and it demeans the CH profession because they work through the whole tree without being rewarded much of an advantage.
Yeah players are smart. They do not use skill points now. No one dabbles CH period. No skill points useage, yep you showed them dabblers. LIE 3 Devs 0
Let me be clear here: it is not the Creature Handler Profession that is over-powered per se. It is the Creature Handler “dabblers” that are using two specific skill trees (in conjunction with out of balance creatures) to give over-powered boosts to other professions.
Oh boy. We CH were not the problem. But you broke us anyway. LIE 4 Devs 0
The goal of the change to the CH profession is the idea of reserving power to players who _truly_ master being a creature handler and make it so they have to really invest in all the skill boxes while reducing the power of "dabblers" and people spending the bare minimum to get the advantages of having powerful pets.
Yeah we were but out on the reservation alright. Everyone's power got reduced. LIE 5 Devs 0
So here are the proposed changes.
There are only three new behaviors that have been added at this point: useSpecial1, useSpecial2 and useRanged. This way, you can order a creature with a ranged attack to use his ranged attack, or order them to use the special attack on-command. This makes things simpler and easier to use and a lot more fun.
Works very sporadically even as a master. Yeah there is a lot of fun in counting on a pet to not work.
LIE 6 Devs 0
With all of these changes, that leaves an interesting challenge on the table: CHs currently don't take on the full risk of a combat encounter like other combat classes do. CHs don't have to deal with taking damage or fending off monsters since the monster is engaged by the creature like other combat classes have to deal with.
Because of this, one of the concerns is that while this plan does bring CHs down a bit, it doesn't necessarily put them on equal footing with the other combat classes. The big question is why would a player not be a CH if they wanted the most offensive power possible?
Here is what we're going to do to address that: NPCs and creatures will get just a tiny bit smarter, and will realize that when you send a pet to attack them, _you_ are attacking them. This doesn't mean that they will instantly and always ignore your pet and head straight for you, but they won't just completely ignore you, either. And if they kill your pet, they'll definitely be attacking you next.
Also, if you heal a pet that is fighting something else, that other creature will "see" it and might choose to respond to that action by attacking you. Probably not a very big chance of that happening, but they won't just completely ignore you as they do now.
Yep. This really made sense. Pets run in combat. Pets got nerfed. And we needed additional agro. Smart move Devs, I see the fun in that. LIE 7 Devs 0
On the upside, Creature Handlers can train Mounts. Player mounts have been added and can now ride Bols, Brackasets, Kaadu, Carrion Spats, Dewbacks, and Falumpasets. To get a mount, mounts must be your pet AND trained as a mount. Creature Handlers will be training the mounts and players can either buy them as trained mounts or players with pets can take their pets to a Creature Handler (with the correct skill) to be trained as a mount. Bio Engineers can create mountable pets but can't automatically train them unless they have Creature Handler skills.
Oh sweet mounts should be cool. Oh you meant the mounts were going to be so pathetic for practical use that no one would want them. LIE 8 Devs 0
Another benefit to all of this is that players will be seeing more types of babies spawning. Before, the number of baby spawns was limited due to balance issues and now we can open that up. In addition to making more types of babies spawn, we're also going to add "rare" baby types that spawn very infrequently. We are also increasing the number of stored pets for master-creature handlers.
We got stored pets increased. YAH!! I will give partial credit for this one, because no one has really seen an increased amount of pets. LIE 8.5 Devs .5
In summary, the Creature Handler Profession has been changed to bring it into better balance with the rest of the professions, it is simpler to use and more equitable for the players who are Creature Handlers. People who are not Creature Handlers don't get all the benefits of the profession by climbing an uneven skill tree.
Yanno. This would have been a great idea if you only placed the additional pet levels through different trees. Of course, we all know you did not and thusly shafted the CH. LIE 9.5 Devs .5
With that being said, Creature Handling is the most popular profession so these changes were considered with great effort to keeping things fun to play and keeping them balanced in a Massively Multiplayer World.
Yeah you considered everything. You considered you were lying to us the whole time you parroted the now infamous combat rebalance. We should hit a year soon before it happens. LOL. I would be very suprised if any of you make it to work on time with these great time telling skills. LIE 10.5 Devs .5
We hope you like the changes and I look forward to hearing your input.
We did not enjoy the changes. And of course you did not like our input. You do not even care that we give input. You have not shown your face on the CH boards since you destroyed us. That is cool. LIE 11.5 Devs .5
In the end, this is where the Veteran CH's stand. Still waiting. Having been lied to by TH. None of the other Devs take any blame for this act. Excusing themselves with some other hot project. Nothing should be hotter than the faces of those who perpetuated and participated in this lie. TH since you must take all the heat maybe these other clowns should give you their paychecks. They have done nothing to help you or help the game in general.
I dare a RED Name to prove me wrong. Of course they cannot because it was all lies to begin with. Nothing but nothing will change the fact they crippled our fun. When the fan bois ask why we are so tweaked about this maybe they can review honestly at how much dmage the Devs did indeed do. Nothing short of reinstating CH to its original form should be acceptable to the Devs. WOW. If I lied this much to people I felt responsible to I would hope they all would leave me.
ratlif
Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:31 pm
#2
Good article. I was just reading a bumped thread from back right before publish 6 came out with TH saying they are working on the "pets running away and standing on top of you bugs". Funny how they are still there.
Seriously this profession is worthless anymore. I am really upset because I love the whole idea of CH
O a redname won't respond because rednames were banned in here lol
Seriously this profession is worthless anymore. I am really upset because I love the whole idea of CH
O a redname won't respond because rednames were banned in here lol
KillerZeke
Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:41 pm
#3
This is sad but all true.
I just posted on a post that got bumpped up from 5 month ago and I was dumb enough to think they were going to fix something with up.
In fact I think it was your post, so thanks to that 8 second of happyness and now back to the sad truth.
TheLoneBowler
Sat Jul 10, 2004 1:53 am
#7
Wow. You are just as powerful? Maybe so but your pets aren't. You didn't notice the armor changes? the CL changes? The changes in resists? I had to do a /cry for my gaping spider hunter and my graul mauler. My TMB was worth 60k a week before the patch and I couldn't sell it for 10k the day after. I didn't even have any real legendary pets and I noticed it.You are either playing with a blindfold on or just fighting meatlumps.
JodoKai wrote:
Look I will be the first to admit the Devs have done some pretty dumb things to this game, and will happily join in some Dev bashing when it's deserved, but you have to get your facts straight. Like I said I was a Master CH when this patch came out and nothing really changed for me. I am just as powerful now as I was before the patch. The difference is players have learned to def stack, and buffs and armor are out of control, which makes pets useless. The patch really didn't change anything except to get rid of dabblers. That's all it really did.
Granted the defense stacking/buffs/armor just put the nail in the coffin for CH.
TsiyaAma
Sat Jul 10, 2004 2:10 am
#8
you're comparing apples and oranges. The skill tree redistribution is what is referred to in that post. NOT the mobchanges that were part of the mythical combat rebalance. Completely different patches if I remember correctly. The only flat-out lie I can point to is the "creatures below CL 70 that do not spawn babies will be the exception, not the rule" comment.
digiwrath
Sat Jul 10, 2004 2:15 am
#9
they came in the same publish.
TsiyaAma wrote:
you're comparing apples and oranges. The skill tree redistribution is what is referred to in that post. NOT the mobchanges that were part of the mythical combat rebalance. Completely different patches if I remember correctly. The only flat-out lie I can point to is the "creatures below CL 70 that do not spawn babies will be the exception, not the rule" comment.
TheLoneBowler
Sat Jul 10, 2004 3:31 am
#10
digiwrath wrote:
they came in the same publish.
Indeed they did... It was like agiant nail-spiked nerf-bat to the.. uh... never mind.
anyway for a while they tried to say it wasn't a nerf but a patch that would benefit the CH most of all.
Angel-Catcher
Sat Jul 10, 2004 4:26 am
#11
I actually started playing this game cause I wanted to do Ch, when the huge CH nerf came I quit for about a month. I am only in game now for Jedi if they totallynerf the Jedi profession I will never come back to SWG. Why would I, nothing left for me thatI would want to do, stupid DEVs nerfing is not the answer wake up. Nobody wants to spend there hard earned money so a dumb dev can nerf professions they worked hard on and care about. This profession was way over nerfed. The max CH level should be 150 as intended. Who is the CH dev. the leader needs to be fired or moved to another dept. Talk about bad job. We need to have a fire the ch dev. petition.
digiwrath
Sat Jul 10, 2004 4:36 am
#12
Angel-Catcher wrote:
The max CH level should be 150 as intended.
no. no no no no.
100 at most. that would give us kimogilas and ancient bull rancors. hardly an unbalancing prospect considering.
150 would scream nerf by giving us enraged dune kimogilas, blurrg raptors, and stoneskin hanadaks. unacceptable, even from the point of view of a ch.
bah..
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