Creature Handler Archive
Thread: The Direction of Change
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evfields
Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:41 am
#1
I'd be surprised if this hadn't been said before. I've just never seen it in a couple months of trolling this forum.
With that aside, to the point: Obviously, CH's can't compare to other combat professions. Or can they? What a CH can do can't compare to what any other combat profession can do, but the professions themselves are almost equal. Let me elaborate. As a MCH,I have often taken down my master fencer, master tka, master pikeman, etc friends with my pets, when the enemy is unbuffed and unarmored, though using crippling strike/dizzy and poison I have taken down a few unbuffed but armored players.
So if this is true, why can't a CH compete with the other professions? Simple, armor and buffs. Sure, you can buff a pet, but it's impractical, because the buffing doctor is in the city, and you store your pet to reach the enemy, therefore nullifying the buff. Of course, you can't armor a pet either.
I often hear people pushing for "medium armor returned". Yet I think this is not the problem - our pets are plenty strong compared to unbuffed players. In fact, my level 56 rancor, 12400 health, 60 kinetic, light armor can probably last longer against many opponents than an unarmored/unbuffed TKA can. Of course it deals less damage, and the TKA is still better due to the far superior damage, but not nearly as much stronger as you would be lead to believe.
To me, there are three easily implemented solutions to help.
1) Stored buffs - If a pet is buffed, stored, and recalled, the buff should remain. To the best of my knowledge, if a player is buffed, logs out, and immediatly logs back in his buffs will still be there, so why should it be different for a pet? On the flip side, if a pet is poisoned, diseased, dizzied, etc, a store/recall should not fix that. This would make buffing pets viable, just as buffing players is already viable.
2)Increased damage - Maybe a CH should last longer but do less damage than the average combat profession. Fine, no problem there. But at the moment, even without buffs, the CH lasts a tiny bit longer and deals almost no damage in comparison. A slight multiplication (maybe 1.5 or so) of the damage on all pets would help fix this.
3) Increased pet stim power - For 107 skill points, a player can master any regular combat profession and pick up novice medic. With just the novice medic box, this player can heal anywhere from about half to all of his unbuffed HAM. For 106 skill points, only one skill point less, a player can master Creature Handler. Yet even using pet stim D's, he can't heal anywhere near half the HAM of his pets. Increased pet stim power, decreased timer, and possible making pet stim C's and D's have a small AoE for all friendly pets would help.
Well, those are my ideas for the time being. Simply put, our problem is not that we can't compare to other combat professions, it's that we have no equivalent to buffs and armor. Of course I'm not a programmer, nor a paid expert on balancing MMORPGs or anything of the sort, so my ideas may well be severely flawed.
If I had my choice between the above changes and bringing regular player buffs in line, I would choose the latter. Reasonable buffs would make armor encumbrance a factor, which would make enemies like Rancors and Jantas a challenge once more.
Oh, for the record, I really don't have any grudges against the doctors...
-Tokalar
Tstorm
Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:57 am
#2
Interesting ideas. I think a lot of what you say here has merit, but with the combat rebalance coming, things might change a lot.
I have a master fencer as well as a MCH and the main difference I notice isn't that I can't do the same things with my MCH, it's just that as a MCH I do them slower than my master fencer does. Hopefully this inequality will be fixed in the combat rebalance.
I have a master fencer as well as a MCH and the main difference I notice isn't that I can't do the same things with my MCH, it's just that as a MCH I do them slower than my master fencer does. Hopefully this inequality will be fixed in the combat rebalance.
Cyphaze
Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:25 am
#3
evfields wrote:
I'd be surprised if this hadn't been said before. I've just never seen it in a couple months of trolling this forum.
With that aside, to the point: Obviously, CH's can't compare to other combat professions. Or can they? What a CH can do can't compare to what any other combat profession can do, but the professions themselves are almost equal. Let me elaborate. As a MCH,I have often taken down my master fencer, master tka, master pikeman, etc friends with my pets, when the enemy is unbuffed and unarmored, though using crippling strike/dizzy and poison I have taken down a few unbuffed but armored players.
So if this is true, why can't a CH compete with the other professions? Simple, armor and buffs. Sure, you can buff a pet, but it's impractical, because the buffing doctor is in the city, and you store your pet to reach the enemy, therefore nullifying the buff. Of course, you can't armor a pet either.
I often hear people pushing for "medium armor returned". Yet I think this is not the problem - our pets are plenty strong compared to unbuffed players. In fact, my level 56 rancor, 12400 health, 60 kinetic, light armor can probably last longer against many opponents than an unarmored/unbuffed TKA can. Of course it deals less damage, and the TKA is still better due to the far superior damage, but not nearly as much stronger as you would be lead to believe.
To me, there are three easily implemented solutions to help.
1) Stored buffs - If a pet is buffed, stored, and recalled, the buff should remain. To the best of my knowledge, if a player is buffed, logs out, and immediatly logs back in his buffs will still be there, so why should it be different for a pet? On the flip side, if a pet is poisoned, diseased, dizzied, etc, a store/recall should not fix that. This would make buffing pets viable, just as buffing players is already viable.
2)Increased damage - Maybe a CH should last longer but do less damage than the average combat profession. Fine, no problem there. But at the moment, even without buffs, the CH lasts a tiny bit longer and deals almost no damage in comparison. A slight multiplication (maybe 1.5 or so) of the damage on all pets would help fix this.
3) Increased pet stim power - For 107 skill points, a player can master any regular combat profession and pick up novice medic. With just the novice medic box, this player can heal anywhere from about half to all of his unbuffed HAM. For 106 skill points, only one skill point less, a player can master Creature Handler. Yet even using pet stim D's, he can't heal anywhere near half the HAM of his pets. Increased pet stim power, decreased timer, and possible making pet stim C's and D's have a small AoE for all friendly pets would help.
Well, those are my ideas for the time being. Simply put, our problem is not that we can't compare to other combat professions, it's that we have no equivalent to buffs and armor. Of course I'm not a programmer, nor a paid expert on balancing MMORPGs or anything of the sort, so my ideas may well be severely flawed.
If I had my choice between the above changes and bringing regular player buffs in line, I would choose the latter. Reasonable buffs would make armor encumbrance a factor, which would make enemies like Rancors and Jantas a challenge once more.
Oh, for the record, I really don't have any grudges against the doctors...
-Tokalar
Hear, hear. Friendly *bump* as these things need to be looked at. I agree 100% with #1 and #2, but as for #3, if you're concerned about healing, here's an alternative solution:
Increase pet secondaries to 1/5th of their maximum HAM (e.g. a rancor has 11300 HAM, so 2260), only while STORED (keep them at 40 while out and about). Doesn't increase their tanking ability, but does cut down on down time between battles. Main thing is I'm having severe trouble finding petstims, and they're reasonably expensive when I do manage to locatea few on the bazaar (~3000 per stim, that's 1/3rd of a buff).
evfields
Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:26 am
#4
I like that, increased stored secondaries would be better than increased stim power.
evfields
Sun Sep 19, 2004 1:07 pm
#5
I suppose you could have a BE make you a mind heavy pet, but no matter how mind heavy he makes it he can't fix those secondaries. 
evfields
Sun Sep 19, 2004 2:23 pm
#6
I'm interested to see what others think of this...
I think another nice addition would be the ability to have pets watch/listen to entertainers, for mind buffs. Of course assuming that the buff remains after a store/recall.
Cyphaze
Sun Sep 19, 2004 2:34 pm
#7
If buffs remain after storing/calling, this is the next natural step.
evfields wrote:
I'm interested to see what others think of this...
I think another nice addition would be the ability to have pets watch/listen to entertainers, for mind buffs. Of course assuming that the buff remains after a store/recall.
hotmad1021
Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:13 pm
#8
im all for having pets that have actual secondary stats instead of having to buff them to get a decent regent rate for their health and action.
HoundMB
Mon Sep 20, 2004 12:43 am
#9
One very important thing too, is that you can't buff your pets willpower. You can buff constitution and stamina, and I always do this when I hunt, with an alt, but there is no way to do willpower. So even if you can get the other stats buffed, you're still totally gimped in pvp by not having a mind buff on pets.
That said, it may not matter a whole lot, since the pets don't enjoy the same damage reduction from players as players receive from them. 75% damage reduction before armor and resists are even taken into account is ludicrous.
brainstuff
Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:49 am
#10
When I got back into CH, my pad was too full for me to tame anything new. So the only thing I could pull out to level up with was a lvl 5 BE Bantha!
Took a while but buffing him meant he could actually get a hit in against a Durni. But for the mind...well, I used Felbar mindbuff food.
Sorted!
Took a while but buffing him meant he could actually get a hit in against a Durni. But for the mind...well, I used Felbar mindbuff food.
Sorted!
jopenack
Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:17 am
#11
I agree on evrything you say in this post
and I also agree what others have said, If or when the combat balance comes armor and buffs will be taking a hit (nerf). I personally believe its for the greater good of the ch's only if the creatures, tamable and non tamable, are not nerfed or balanced any further. If they creatures alone as it is right now then we shall be needed for groups once again and we shall have our nitch in the world.
The ham system being revamped will help people adjust to the weaker adjustments made. since we will no longer kill ourselves with special moves. however it is likely we wont be able to spam our specials in combat for a prolonged period either. that being said our tanking pets will allow us time to recoup in this ham pool also.
kepp in mind this is all theory on what the devs have posted in past threads when we though they were working on cb. and as long as they do not nerf ch again I believe most ch will be happy with it.
P.S.
I still would like to see some species of pets in the higher lvl catagories be increased in protective stats. an ultra rare bull rancor or any ultra rare petshould have kinetic protection of 60%. they nerf them all in the kinetic area resulting in a high lvl pet that isn't worth the time of hinting other than a trophy peice.
Tstorm
Mon Sep 20, 2004 7:34 am
#12
jopenack's post got me to thinking a bit more about the combat revamp and how we may/should see some differences. If there is some sort of nerf affecting many/all combat professions, buffs, and that kind of thing (hopefully all for the "greater good" as jopenack said!), the ability to gain xp will be reduced.
Already, I can gain xp faster with my Master Fencer then I can my MCH and this impacts Force Sensitive xp progress. Not that it's a race or anything and whether you group or solo also affects it, but I hope that various xp caps, conversion ratios, and skillbox requirements are considered as part of the combat rebalance. From what I see, CH's are a bit unbalanced with regards to other combat professions in this regard.
Already, I can gain xp faster with my Master Fencer then I can my MCH and this impacts Force Sensitive xp progress. Not that it's a race or anything and whether you group or solo also affects it, but I hope that various xp caps, conversion ratios, and skillbox requirements are considered as part of the combat rebalance. From what I see, CH's are a bit unbalanced with regards to other combat professions in this regard.
raynedog
Mon Sep 20, 2004 4:25 pm
#13
Someone else said it best though I forgot exctly who, anyhow I am very intrested/worried about CB because ( as someone else pointed out) If no player is supposed to be able to solo a Rancor and Ch can controll a Racncor then 1 of 2 things will happen. You can guess what they are.
If CH has pets that are toufh to beat in combat, that is to say, if you can no longer ignore the pets and kill the master then kill the pet with little to no effort, CH+ anything will be the template to go with again. So the bind that SWG puts us in is -
They gave a proff that can controll a creature giving the CH and "extra" weapon to be used in combat, then figured that one player + a pet should not be able to do anything 2 players can do. so they nerf CH. When the other players get CB down to our level then once again it will be better to have a pet by your side then not. So how do you make this proff usefull, fun and effective without making it the proff that everyone is for everything again. How do you incress the CH effectivenes in combat without decreasing the effectivenes of those without pets.
We as a community I belive have tried to answer but have recived 0 feed back on what the role of CH is going to be, supposed to be, or if any of our ideas will ever come to pass. Bottom line, you give people pets the should be effective, as soon as they become effective others will complain because pets are effective, then CH gets further nurfed, then CH complain, ect ect ect.
So, in my mind the important questions that require Dev input are
1: What was the role you wanted CH to play when you added the prof to the game; what do you view thier role should be now?
2: Will our most popular ideas ever come to pass?
3: Do you see CH having a place in PvP?
4: Is CH in line for a revamp such as the ones we've seen in Chef and Jedi or is it you hope the CB will solve the "broken" aspects of CH?
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