Creature Handler Archive
Thread: My view on CH's problems (you asked barb)
Message Edited by taloncard on 03-23-2004 10:17 AM
Agree with everything you said.
I do believe CH, at least now that they fixed the pet running, is still viable for PvE if you have a combat profession. Only problem with that, you dont need pets to tank for you anymore. Armor, buffs, sliced weapon, & Master CombatProfessionis all you need. I would have never had known that unless the pet running bug was in the past two weeks.
In a sense I'm glad the bugs were in the game. It may me realize how I could actually soloeverthing (excluding 300k ham mobs)without pets now, which wasn't the case at the launch of this game.
I hope the devs do decide what CH is supposed to be, support or combat. Right now devs seem to be confused, its obvious when they quote old examples of how we were once Uber in PvP and PvE. Hopefully they can make their mind up during the Combat Rebalance.
taloncard wrote:
Is CH totally broken no and unplayable NO!!
that being said.
1) economy
We once had a very strong market for pets, it was yanked out from under us in 1 patch
We once had a very strong market for Mounts same as above
i went from being able to make 200K+ from a few hours of hunting down babies training them and sitting in AH yelling and selling them. 1/2 of the fun was in walking all over talus finding GSP's (yeah I said walking). The other 1/2 was seeing how happy someone was in getting their 1st GSP or the ability to call 2.
I don't consider the ability to run missions a viable economy, If that is what was ment why bother with the TRANSFER command.
I hate to say it but bring back the inablity to transfer all pets unless they have the transfer command, and put the transfer command to Novice CH, Give us some market back.
Yes, the market for tamed pets has gone down. I'm not a master yet and the only reason to I tame is a) to see if I can tame that mob. b) ttr
Missions are a viable economy, get in the right group and you can make serious cash
You can still trade pets using the trade window.
2) PvE
nothing really too broken here, we are not as powerful but I really have no issues with it
Agree. In my judgement CH's are a tanking class and my(our) pets do a wonderful job at that.
3) Creatures
I find creatures IN GENERAL (not just pets) way too weak. things I used to fear I now laugh at. Why is a CL 50 rancor weaker in protection than a CL35 GM. Rancors are defined in the SWU as a heavily armored arachnid like creature (minius all the arms).
You should not have to go to an expert planet to find semi-challenging creatures to fight not just to tame.
Agree. I use BE pets for hunting as they are worlds ahead of any wild creature I can tame. There will be a few I will keep as they are pets I just "Want" but for now I only fight with BE pets. However on the starter planets, the heav duty creatures should be back "Out of the way" so you must seek them out rather they lay waste to all thenew characters just starting out.
4) PvP
Lets face it pets are as effective as a D18 pistol or a DLT20a rifle for PvP. I laugh when I see a CH send his pets against me, it's barely even a distraction. To be honest I don't know what a real fair solution to this would be. Yes a MCH sending 3 pre patch GSP's against 1 person in PvP may provide too much of an advantage to the MCH. I won't argue that one person becomming an army of 4 is a tad unbalanced. On the other hand why is the most powerful pet in the game a faction perk (AT ST) and not a CH pet.
Haven't started PVPing yet... I'll get back to you on this one.
5) Broken commands
The big bone we were promised with the revamp was pet special attacks and command over ranged attacks. These rarely if ever work. and most state attacks have no effect on creatures they are meant for PVP really, where even there they are useless.
6) Bugs bugs bugs
some of the bugs have been around since day 1, the pet auto store being the worst, and the pet warp being the 2nd worst in my oponion. for every fix they make it seems to create another bug, I understand the nature of programming. I have done quite a bit, but things need to be tested more before they are pushed to live.
7) our roll
It seems that a CH's role of support or combat profession is yet to be decided, by the devs. To tell you the truth I don't care the outcome just decide already. we started out as a combat proffeeion that is now stuck in limbo. Still good PvE'ers but horrible PvP.
I think it has been decieded that we are a support role in that our pets are tanks. They take the damage more than they put out. I feel it should be that way as if a pet is that powerful, would a CH realy be able to control it? My feelings are that as a tank class with BE pets we are just about right. I would like to see more wild tamable creatures. BE pet should be better than wilds... I know thi scomment may draw up flames, but think about this, BE's are taking teh best that nature has to offer and combining it to make something better. If wild pets and BE pets were equal... why have BE's BE's are the weaponsmith for CH's. Any Artisan can make a CDEF pistol, bu tonly a weaponsmith can make a t21. Same thoery applies here.
This is not a rant, this is not a whine or a flame. These are my oponions. I ask that replys to this thread stay constructive, feel free to add your own views, and keep in mind I also am entilted to mine.
Thank you
Shrik wrote:
taloncard wrote:
Is CH totally broken no and unplayable NO!!
that being said.
1) economy
Yes, the market for tamed pets has gone down. I'm not a master yet and the only reason to I tame is a) to see if I can tame that mob. b) ttr
Missions are a viable economy, get in the right group and you can make serious cash
You can still trade pets using the trade window.
Maybe I should clarify.
I donot consider running missions an economy, I consider it a way to make money.
Economy is based on supply and demand, we once had very strong demand and a strong supply.
Now there is a supply and a almost 0 demand. Why have the transfer command if running missions is our income.
lets debate!!
1. economy.
i agree that there is almost a total lack of a CH economy. the problem stems from the fact that pets that are worthwhile to tame are generally incredibly hard to find and even when you find one a BE can slap together a pet that should be ranked around the level of a ancient bull rancor instead of having the CL of a dewback...
i think the solution to this problem lies more with bringing BE into line with wild pet CL to power ratios. the second part would be to make mounted pets a viable option to vehicles. as soon as vehicles came out mounts became something of a joke. no one rides em except as a means of immersion into SWG. a little bit of balance and dev love is desperately needed to make mounts worthwhile. i think that the argument of mounts being low maintence is facetious at best. you have to be in a pretty sorry state not to afford the 5k to repair a burning speeder.
3. creatures:
supposedly this will all fall in line with the combat re-vamp. has me a bit nervous admitidly with what they have planned. they said that some things would seem stronger or weaker as the "balance" took place.
4. PVP
i dont pvp all that much so i will refrain from speaking about something i generally dont do.
5. broken commands
here is a spot that a lot of people have totally misunderstood in how pet specials work. pet specials for the most part work the same way that player melee specials work. players cant stack specials into the queue then run up to a target and have em all go off. pets cant do that either. so what happens is that the pet/owner is at some distance from the target the owner tells the pet to use a special pet runs up and does a normal attack. the pet has to be in melee range for a special to go off. they only show in the floaties if the special is successful, and there is a timer for the special before you can issue another. im not sure what the exact interval is.
to test pet special effectiveness get a friend who is a master CH and get two wild rancors which will have exact same stats. do a rancor duel or 8 and have one person issuing pet special commands and the other not and see which rancor wins. the special using rancor will win easily every time. when no specials are used both rancors are damaged about the same rate. you just dont always see a visual confirmation that a pet is using specials. i suggest that we petition for just such a visual cue and documentation on how they work to dispel the special use myths. it is rather eye opening. any two same pets with specials will work but rancors have some nice specials.
ranged attacks: the devs didnt say taht we could command the pets to use ranged attacks i dont remeber that but if you can point to patch notes or one of their quotes i would like to see it. not saying they didnt tell us that im just saying i dont remember it. but anyway with BE pets a pet skin that doesnt have some varient that does ranged attacks in the wild will not have them in a BE version. i dont know if that is a bug or not.
currently the only broken command i know of is the follow command for mounts which broke in the last hotfix.
6. bugs:
i agree there are a lot of bugs with CH but compaired to where we were months ago things are getting better. honestly i almost never have the auto-store problem now. not sure what you mean by pet warping i dont think i have personally experienced that. the ones that come to mind now have generally been fixed or are being fixed. i cant imagine that they are not going to fix the mount follow bug in short order
but anyway there is a definate lack of testing and that i firmly beleive is the root cause of bugs leaking thru TC. when we are allowed to copy ourselves over there i will be one of the first out finding TC pets to help squash bugs before they can rear up on live.
7. our role.
i just about totally agree what is our role?? this is something i firmly believe the devs should address. what do the devs think the CH role should be. i know what i believe it should be and im sure you have your opinion on it too. but i think what we lack is a firm statement from the devs in what we are definately not allowed to be.
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i think we see eye to eye on the majority of things. my whole point is that i dont think CH is as broken as some people would like to lead everyone to believe. yeah we have problems and they could be better. but we are hardly a broken profession. if the amount of tiem that was spent by some folks pissing and moaning about how CH sucks and put into efforts in coming up with ideas and intellectually discussing the problems we as a whole will be better for it.
i dont pvp all that much so i will refrain from speaking about something i generally dont do.
5. broken commands
ranged attacks: the devs didnt say taht we could command the pets to use ranged attacks i dont remeber that but if you can point to patch notes or one of their quotes i would like to see it. not saying they didnt tell us that im just saying i dont remember it. but anyway with BE pets a pet skin that doesnt have some varient that does ranged attacks in the wild will not have them in a BE version. i dont know if that is a bug or not.
Ranged attacks are only available to certain pets that have them, the Greater desert whomp rat, the bobcatt , most beetles are a few that come to mind, find one of these (tatooine) and you will see on the radial menu under train there is a ramged attack command. as for a post reference look for TH's original "oh my there is a lot of changes comming (creature revamp)" threads.
taloncard wrote:
i dont pvp all that much so i will refrain from speaking about something i generally dont do.
5. broken commands
ranged attacks: the devs didnt say taht we could command the pets to use ranged attacks i dont remeber that but if you can point to patch notes or one of their quotes i would like to see it. not saying they didnt tell us that im just saying i dont remember it. but anyway with BE pets a pet skin that doesnt have some varient that does ranged attacks in the wild will not have them in a BE version. i dont know if that is a bug or not.Ranged attacks are only available to certain pets that have them, the Greater desert whomp rat, the bobcatt , most beetles are a few that come to mind, find one of these (tatooine) and you will see on the radial menu under train there is a ramged attack command. as for a post reference look for TH's original "oh my there is a lot of changes comming (creature revamp)" threads.
thanks, i will try taming one of those and try it. i generally avoid ranged attack pets because it defeats the purpose to which i put my pets. but i will tame one and give it a shot. i will let you know what happens and if it falls under the same rules in regards to special timer of the other pet specials.
Barb-Wire wrote:
thats exactly the way to lodge complaints!! bravo
lets debate!!
1. economy.
i agree that there is almost a total lack of a CH economy. the problem stems from the fact that pets that are worthwhile to tame are generally incredibly hard to find and even when you find one a BE can slap together a pet that should be ranked around the level of a ancient bull rancor instead of having the CL of a dewback...
i think the solution to this problem lies more with bringing BE into line with wild pet CL to power ratios. the second part would be to make mounted pets a viable option to vehicles. as soon as vehicles came out mounts became something of a joke. no one rides em except as a means of immersion into SWG. a little bit of balance and dev love is desperately needed to make mounts worthwhile. i think that the argument of mounts being low maintence is facetious at best. you have to be in a pretty sorry state not to afford the 5k to repair a burning speeder.
3. creatures:
supposedly this will all fall in line with the combat re-vamp. has me a bit nervous admitidly with what they have planned. they said that some things would seem stronger or weaker as the "balance" took place.
4. PVP
i dont pvp all that much so i will refrain from speaking about something i generally dont do.
5. broken commands
here is a spot that a lot of people have totally misunderstood in how pet specials work. pet specials for the most part work the same way that player melee specials work. players cant stack specials into the queue then run up to a target and have em all go off. pets cant do that either. so what happens is that the pet/owner is at some distance from the target the owner tells the pet to use a special pet runs up and does a normal attack. the pet has to be in melee range for a special to go off. they only show in the floaties if the special is successful, and there is a timer for the special before you can issue another. im not sure what the exact interval is.
to test pet special effectiveness get a friend who is a master CH and get two wild rancors which will have exact same stats. do a rancor duel or 8 and have one person issuing pet special commands and the other not and see which rancor wins. the special using rancor will win easily every time. when no specials are used both rancors are damaged about the same rate. you just dont always see a visual confirmation that a pet is using specials. i suggest that we petition for just such a visual cue and documentation on how they work to dispel the special use myths. it is rather eye opening. any two same pets with specials will work but rancors have some nice specials.
ranged attacks: the devs didnt say taht we could command the pets to use ranged attacks i dont remeber that but if you can point to patch notes or one of their quotes i would like to see it. not saying they didnt tell us that im just saying i dont remember it. but anyway with BE pets a pet skin that doesnt have some varient that does ranged attacks in the wild will not have them in a BE version. i dont know if that is a bug or not.
currently the only broken command i know of is the follow command for mounts which broke in the last hotfix.
6. bugs:
i agree there are a lot of bugs with CH but compaired to where we were months ago things are getting better. honestly i almost never have the auto-store problem now. not sure what you mean by pet warping i dont think i have personally experienced that. the ones that come to mind now have generally been fixed or are being fixed. i cant imagine that they are not going to fix the mount follow bug in short order
but anyway there is a definate lack of testing and that i firmly beleive is the root cause of bugs leaking thru TC. when we are allowed to copy ourselves over there i will be one of the first out finding TC pets to help squash bugs before they can rear up on live.
7. our role.
i just about totally agree what is our role?? this is something i firmly believe the devs should address. what do the devs think the CH role should be. i know what i believe it should be and im sure you have your opinion on it too. but i think what we lack is a firm statement from the devs in what we are definately not allowed to be.
-------
i think we see eye to eye on the majority of things. my whole point is that i dont think CH is as broken as some people would like to lead everyone to believe. yeah we have problems and they could be better. but we are hardly a broken profession. if the amount of tiem that was spent by some folks pissing and moaning about how CH sucks and put into efforts in coming up with ideas and intellectually discussing the problems we as a whole will be better for it.
And a Bravo to You Barb, for not Toting the usual we are all wrong attitude. As for the Moaners and Pissers you speak. Most of them Myself included have attempted the Intellectual approach and have given many different and valid perspectives. The REASON for most discontent here is the lack of communication or at least the Feeling that CH is being ignored. The 30 Second delay is a perfect example. There were MANY thought out responses posted, reasons for not needing this delay. Every answer Given by SoE was returned with no backing. All the reasons they had for implementing it were in essence WRONG.
There Are broken commands other than the Specials which maybe not Broken, are Very Vague in their proper use. If you need to create a macro in order for the special to work, then one would say the command in itself is Not Functioning. If I was to use strafeShot2 after targeting an enemy, but forgot to equip my Rifle, I would get an error that the target is too far or I cant use this special with the current weapon. The Reason 99% of the people that believe it to be a bug still and not working is because SINCE the patch was released we have been asking SoE to "Fix" or Explain the function... Still to this day SoE have NOT answered that question, instead it is placed on the Bug list with AutoStore and the others that have plagued our Profession from day 1. /tellpet doesnt work consistantly. This is well a broken command and a bug, I would place it as a bug as if it was a broken command it would be broken for everyone, it only seems to affect some people. Which a LOT of the bugs in our profession do. The people that have them Know, the people that DONT have them and tell the people that do have them they are wrong and to stop whining... Well that seems wrong to me doesnt it?
As for TC, its great if it works. There were bugs that were Known bugs in TC before they started the Trickle patches, but they pushed them to production anyway.
Hopefully things will change... And again this board will not be a place we have to Debate bug fixes... Thats SoE's job. Its also the Job of the correspondants to communicate our views and get us some answer Any answer... Even a They are still looking into it, will apease a LOT of folks here.
Barb-Wire wrote:
taloncard wrote:
i dont pvp all that much so i will refrain from speaking about something i generally dont do.
5. broken commands
ranged attacks: the devs didnt say taht we could command the pets to use ranged attacks i dont remeber that but if you can point to patch notes or one of their quotes i would like to see it. not saying they didnt tell us that im just saying i dont remember it. but anyway with BE pets a pet skin that doesnt have some varient that does ranged attacks in the wild will not have them in a BE version. i dont know if that is a bug or not.
Ranged attacks are only available to certain pets that have them, the Greater desert whomp rat, the bobcatt , most beetles are a few that come to mind, find one of these (tatooine) and you will see on the radial menu under train there is a ramged attack command. as for a post reference look for TH's original "oh my there is a lot of changes comming (creature revamp)" threads.
thanks, i will try taming one of those and try it. i generally avoid ranged attack pets because it defeats the purpose to which i put my pets. but i will tame one and give it a shot. i will let you know what happens and if it falls under the same rules in regards to special timer of the other pet specials.
I gotta agree generally with the thread and the issues pointed out.
I disagree with Barb, but only slightly on the issue of BE pets. I think it's fair to assume that an engineered solution would be superior to a non-engineered one. Having tinkered with BE for a few weeks now, you don't exactly 'slap together' a pet; to get those stats is a lot of work. But as I've said before, I think that there should some rare pets that are a match for BE creations.
The other disagreement is in the bug section, but that's experience based and truthfully can vary like the wind even in two different sessions on the same day. I still see auto-store and broken follow bugs. The auto-store is a real killer.
I pretty much agree with everything except for what is the role of CH - support or combat? I've argued in other threads that CH is combat and continue to do so. I'm not saying that CH is an effective combat profession but it is a combat profession. I'm basically just going to repeat what I always say, so if you've seen my arguments before, you know what's coming.
First, let's define our terms.
A combat profession is one that has skills/weapons that allow one to engage in combat. Yes? No?
), entertainer, medic (unless they specialize as combat medic).
fantoq wrote:I gotta agree generally with the thread and the issues pointed out.
I disagree with Barb, but only slightly on the issue of BE pets. I think it's fair to assume that an engineered solution would be superior to a non-engineered one. Having tinkered with BE for a few weeks now, you don't exactly 'slap together' a pet; to get those stats is a lot of work. But as I've said before, I think that there should some rare pets that are a match for BE creations.
The other disagreement is in the bug section, but that's experience based and truthfully can vary like the wind even in two different sessions on the same day. I still see auto-store and broken follow bugs. The auto-store is a real killer.
i would like to address the BE vs wild pet point.
my thinking is that the BE pets should be the sort of thing that is CL per CL no more or less powerful than the wild tames. the advantage of a BE pet should NOT be the ability to lower the CL to power ratio but allow the BE to pick and choose what resists specials and HAM goes into a pet. i firmly believe that the devs missed the ball when it came to allowing BE the ability to drasticly lower CL level while maintaining pet power. this has the very undesired effect of making tamed wild pets obsolete for all practical purposes.
if a BE can make a CL52 pet with LightArmour 60% resists and 80% on 5 other stats with ham in the 11k range then why cant i tame an enraged bull rancor?? that is the root of the problem. the advantage of BE pets should be in what goes into a pet not lowering the pet CL and leaving the advantages of a much higher level pet in it. sad thing is that a good BE can make such a pet down to level 35. kinda defeats the purpose of nerfing the hell out of the graul maulers... ironic.
this thread is a refreshing breath of air. this forum for too long has been dominated by folks positing things without any refrence to fact or real first hand experience that can be duplicated.