Development Cycle Archive
Thread: “Oh my…sir, he says there are several creatures approaching�
Heh, don't confuse them with the facts. Their left and right hands haven't spoke in months.
TrellFalco wrote:
Well I just want to thank the devs for labeling me an "exploiter". Your game adventure manual states skills and professions as this.
"The character you define during character creation is only a starting point for your online persona. As you advance through the game, your character will evolve, gaining new skills, abilities, and even entire professions over time. You are free to choose exactly how your character grows and changes, deciding whether you want to specialize in a small set of related skills or to expand and deversify."
I guess that last part should read.. unless you want to be a creature handler then you must be a master to control a high end pet because we dont want any dabblers in that profession. My character in game was a Master Ranger I chose Rifleman because that seemed like the weapon of choice for the chosen profession. I also went creature handler because I assumed a Ranger would also have a little creature empathy. So the combination of skills seemed appropriate. I went out and tamed all the pets I owned or used. I have been waiting for creature mounts to come out with my mountain dewback sitting patiently in the datapad for just that use. Now it will just sit there until the changes and then get deleted since I most likely wont be able to use him as he is a level 20 pet. Thanks once again for making my game play and the countless hours of skill buildingworthless.
For what it's worth i thought I'd post. Of course no DEV will read this. Thunderheart included. Just a hand full of players....
First up I still do not see any reason why a novice CHcan notstay level 15. Will there be fixes to the other professions when this proposed CH overhaul is done? If so fine, many will give up CH anyway, but the real answer is probably "no, sorry".
Also instead of Bio-Engineers making lower level pets (level 10 and under) for mounts and having creature handler's train them, why can't there be "lesser" dewbacks that are level 10 in the wild, etc.? My wife is a CH going for Master and she NEVER gets paid for training a pet for someone. How is she going to make money for mounts? Nobody wants a stupid carrion spat for a mount. You and SOE are taking away one of the way a CH can make money. Is this part of the grand scheme of "equaling the economy"? Equal the economy by giving players something to buy or atleast spend money on.
Maybe BEs could sell "special colored" mounts, or mounts with special abilities. Let creature handlers be the ones that can train and sell mounts. Better yet let creature handlers have VENDORS to sell non-CH and pets. Why should my wife have to stand outside the spaceport and spam spacial with YELLS to sell her stuff when a BE will get to sell mounts through vendors?
Guess that's enough wasted time typing on something that won't be read....
Josha Bash - Lowca
does "follow other" actually do any sort of good job? if you get a pet to follow your friend what exactly does that do to beenfit anyone other than havng a stalker. Will it attack anyone who attacks the person its following? probably not, it will just sit there untill the owner stores it. people could just make it follow people for fun, id be annoyed if one of those creatures that shakes the screen constantly was told to follow me. Can we turn off that "screen shaking" in any options cuz its super annoying when people bring them through towns.
I love the changes being made to CH
I love the ability to call out more droids....
AND I LOVE THE FACT THAT RANK ACTUALLY HAS MEANING....
**edit** do I level up my rank for just like any other profession and get to be no better than a private....
SO YOU CAN'T CALL OUT 3 FACTION PETS AT FIRST..... Get a grip... EARN!!!! That's right I mean EARN the rank!!!!
BOOO HOOO.... Now all I see are posts of -- I CAN'T CALL OUT 3 soldiers any more because I'm only a low ranking private, and the Colonel can call out 3 good soldiers --
Does your whining make sense? No.
Should being a Colonel have more advantages than a Private? Yes.
Could you get rank if try? Yes.
Could you control more pets if you rank? Yes.
3 Stormtroopers to Player PC rank Private as it is now, 'Yes Sir. Will do as you command.'
In a military those 3 stormtroopers will be like 'Fudge-off you are only a fargin' private. Why should we listen to you?'
Can someone who has complained about the faction rank / faction pet tie-in give me a response? Are you just too lazy to get rank? It's not like it takes skill points. Its a skill pointless system after all. Just get the rank.
I have to say that I am very disappointed in the developers caving in to the Creature Handlers on so many issues regarding the recent Creature Handler changes (Part 3 is on the developers board in case you missed it).
The changes they proposed originally would help curve the power of CH's without destroying the profession. The problem is, these changes DIDN'T GO FAR ENOUGH! Even with the revised CH proposal, it did NOTHING to stop "dabblers". If you worked the trees right, you could still have a high level pet and still master the flamethrower skills.
But now, with Thunderhearts Part 3 post, they have essentially taken away everything they had to curb Creature Handler power.
- They are allowing +1 pets at Management 3 AND at Master. Meaning that Master CH's can still have 3 pets instead of the 2 that was proposed originally.
- They are keeping the max Creature Level at 70 instead of 60 as proposed.
- CH's will be able to tame pets with a CL of over 60 now.
- They are adding +2 EXTRA to Novice Creature Handler and an additional +1 to all bottom tier skills and all top tier skills.
It seems to me that everything they did to start bringing CH's down to earth a bit has been reverted. PLUS they can now have higher level pets.
Thunderheart said that by making additional pets available at higher levels it would slow down the rate of gains. The problem is that no matter how long you make it take to master a skill, eventually a large number of people will get there.
In UO, Mages at one time were extremely powerful at high levels. Much more so than any other skill set. The developers (I believe it was Designer Dragon, aka Holocron) said that they were powerful because it took a long time to max out a mage and was expensive. This was true.
The problem was that since it was powerful, people were willing to take the time and expense to get to high levels. And once you got to the top, you made your money back 100 times over.
It's the same thing the developers of any game have to look at. Not at "This class will takea long time to master so there wont be very many". Thats not true. They need to look at how powerful the class will be when it IS mastered and balance it from there. Because no matter how hard you make it to master, eventually alot of people will.
At this point, I think the proposed CH changes are a total waste of programming time. Everything they were going to do to limit them has been swept away because of the CH outcry. And of course there is a CH outcry. No one likes to get nerfed. And there are alot of CH's. Of course, there are alot of CH's BECAUSE they are overpowered.
Migh as well leave CH's the way they are now and spend the programming time fixing something else. The new CH changes have just become a total joke.
The controversy surrounding pets and CHes (to nerf or not to nerf) I think is really symptomatic of a larger issue--the lack of adequate player tanks. Star Wars is a game that heavily favors ranged attacks and ranged weapons. This + the incredibly annoying bug that has mobs closing distances instantaneously + the heavy penalties for holding a ranged weapon when under melee attack makes pets not only desirable, but almost a necessity.
I am not a fan of Pet Wars, but I understand the evolution towards it. My only argument against nerfing dabbler CHes and non-CH pets is that there is no system in place to take up the slack. Even if you buff the abilities of the few SWG melee classes to act as tanks, I don't think the numbers are there to support all the non-melee players who prefer to combat something challenging without taking frequent trips to the cloners. The solo hunter is even worse off.
Fix mob warping and I won't complain about the removal of critter tanks. Make CC devices like traps work against NPC mobs. Give us back some of our posture effecting weapon skills and/or reduce the reuse timers on mobs. Increase the range on heals for stims used by non-medic professionals. Any or some combination of these fixes should go in at the same time as pet nerfs.
I'm not saying combat is undoable without pets, but it sure is a whole lot less workable and fun. Treat the prevalence of pets as a symptom of a larger problem and then work to fix the whole, not the part. There needs to be a better methodology of balancing the game than once a month simply yanking away the most common strategy that's working for players.
Although I do not share Enix's view of the MCH as being overpowererd, I do agree with 1 point he made.
Adding +1 Pet Levels at the level 1 boxes and level 4 boxes does deminish the desired reduction in dabblers ability to wield higher pets. Instead, I believe those extra levels should be placed at the Master level. This would make it more of an investment to dabblers while not hurting the top rank of the profession.
Just my 2 credits.
Vinaddar
The very fact that an Imperial will be able to call an At-St with an 18k HAM that does huge damage and Rebels are limited to one trooper with a 5500 HAM that does 25-35 damage because of 75% PvP reduction makes this whole system a joke.
Why am I being affected by a profession I don't even hold and can't stand.
Creature Handler will be the death of SWG.
yay for the changes!
you can still subtract $30/month from your bottom line due to it.
Novice=lvl 12 pet?
Why is the Novice box set so low? The player works hard to obtain all the scouting xp required for Novice CH and he is only rewarded with a +2 pet lvl? This seems real low. Why not bump them back up to the lvl 15 that the non-CHs where at before the change?