Development Cycle Archive
Thread: “Oh my…sir, he says there are several creatures approaching�
Also, you at least respondded to the inquiry about ETA, which you could have very well left alone, and with it all of us still confused. Even if you can't give us one now, I'm very pleased to know you acknowledged the question.
Cheers and good job. Special thanks to the DEVs who stuck it out with you, this isn't an easy class to balance.
Woot!
First, KUDOS on you proving that Two WayCommunication WORKS. I see that some, if not many, of the player's concerns has been addressed WITHOUT VAGUENESS. I really like the part when you say its a flat out NO when its not going to happen i.e. hints on pets, keeping XP, release datesetc. This is what it should be. No dangling of false carrots and raising expectations when you have no confidence of fulfilling it.
Second, I fully agree with no hints on new babies. BUT we do needtohavea list of the pets that will be nerfed i.e. especially in the case where many people will be affected i.e. maulers, etc. Please make sure this goes into the patch notes and make sure everyone has fair access to the info. I have no problem with the list being released at the same time as the patch. What is NOT COOL is to login one day and found out the pets that you have got severely nerfed and you had no idea (unless you are a board crawler).
Overall,
THUMBS UP!
Two way communication? All I see is backpedaling by the devs to the squeaky CH wheels.
Too bad they aren't listening to their nonCH subscribers at all.
The CH changes don't bother me too much, (although I will miss my GSP, Meph, i was gonna drop ch to master commando/smuggle anyway) I really don't understand the faction/droid plan (or lack thereof) you have.
You tell us that you have a plan to make rank count for faction pets, and skill sets count for droids, yet you're not going to implement it at the same time you start the 1 pet per non-ch rule? Why on earth not? I've read through every post up till now on this theread, and just about every other one from a non CH asks the same question.
If you have the plan to balance faction pets and droids in the works, why would you aggrivate non-ch playerbase needlessly by not instituting it at the same time as the CH changes?
I agree with you Mariki - if you're a Master CH this isn't much of a change for you; just likeif you are a Master Bounty Hunter / Pistoleer these changes don't matter that much to you either. The people that are most impacted are those currently or about to attempt to Master CH.
So, Thunderheart - when asking yourself 'do people support the changes' I think the people whose opinion matter most are those who are most impacted - namely Creature Handlers who aren't Master yet. In fact, I'd throw Master CH's opinion (at this point anyway) in with the same bucket as those who aren't a CH at all - if not less! The non-CH are going to lose their rock beetles and mountain krevols, after all.
In fact, as a Master I'm getting something - the ability to find and call level 60 or 70 pets. That's a tremendous benefit to me with, as far as I can tell, no down-side. In fact, there really isn't any down-side for Master CH's at all. If there is one and I'm missing it - what is it?
Of course, we still don't know what the changes in Creature Level will be. That will definately have an impact to all CH, but because we don't know we can't comment on it.
I'm definately in favor of getting balance into the CH tree - I completely agree that 3/2/x/x was WAY too powerful. I'm just dissapointed in the fact that it seems like moving up the tree is designed to be a major grind. That's too bad.
I always viewed the xp needed to get a box in CH in terms of how many mobs I'd have to kill that gave me 100 xp. This is a good yardstick because that's how much you get on average for killing low level mobs outside the cities with a low level pet. Getting the 4th level of any of the branches costs 140,000xp. To me, that means 1,400 kills. For each box. Given that it seems that with one pet you can get about 20,000xp per hour, that would mean 7 hours per box - or 28 hours (of mind-numbing boredom) for just the 4th level of CH. I always liked that getting Management 3 rewarded you with a way to effectively half that time. If I look at the whole CH tree, that would be about 1 million xp (give or take a few) or 50 hours of killing low level mobs - wow! Getting a way to reduce that (not quite in half - lets say to 30) seemed very reasonable. Making Master CH in 30 hours of gameplay of CH (you of course had to get to the novice box - not sure how long that takes anymore) seems very fair. 30 hours of gameplay is what you get out of most single-player games before it is over. And that's if you do something pretty dull like that - but it is a good yardstick. Most of the time I'd say a CH spends twice that in game because of doing things like taming, killing real mobs, etc.
I'd be curious to know if the developers have their own yardstick on 'time to master.' But maybe that's a design secret.
I hate nerfs in any form, but these changes are 100x better than the last proposed changes.
TH ROCKS, WOOHOO!
Seriously, thank you so much for listening to all of us on the CH threads!!! Oh btw will my AR2 Kliknik Queen be nerfed? plz say no
BTW CHILDREN COMPLAINING ABOUT DROPPING THE CL OF NON CHS TO 10, TALK TO A BE, THEY CAN MAKE U REALLY GOOD PETS, ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY CAN DROP THE CL OF THEIR PETS TO 10!!!!!!. AKA DEWBACKS, BRACKASETS CAN BE MADE TO BE LVL 10.
im not a BE so i dont know exactly, but head to the BE boards and ask them. oh yea, stop bitching
I've had my rock beetle, Crunch, for nearly my entire lifespan in this game. He and I have been through a lot together, and now I find out I'm going to have to say good bye?
He's far from "uber". In no way does he unbalance *anything*. Yes, I'll be able to get a probot (which has a challenge rating of 16, by the way) but I'll lose the feeling of a "pet", rather than a tool. A probot doesn't have any personality.
<sigh> This game gets less fun by the day.
Crooth wrote:when asking yourself 'do people support the changes' I think the people whose opinion matter most are those who are most impacted - namely Creature Handlers who aren't Master yet. In fact, I'd throw Master CH's opinion (at this point anyway) in with the same bucket as those who aren't a CH at all -
Hmmm seems people dont read all posts or you would of seen some of us Masters crying out on behalf of the poor novice.
As a matter of fact if you goto the CH forum you will notice in 1 thread alot of US voted for Novice to get level 15 pets.
As far as it not affecting us if novices get the shaft, I have friends grinding away that I group with, what affects them affects the group.
Not all masters are cold hearted.
The majority of CH had issues with the proposed changes and voiced their opinions objectively,the devs listened and have revised their changes.
What you dont need to do is listen to people who hate a class and cry for nerfs with no basis or objectivity.There is an endless supply of those
Show me anyone who loves getting nerfed and I'll show you a fool.
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What Droid Nerfs Daker? Since launch, we DE's have not been able to call more than one droid and store only 5, whether master or not. The concept to Finally be able to call more than 1 droid out at a time is Great. Faction Perks will be based on your rank, now you have to spend points on rank to call more pets with these changes.
Nailliar,
Don't be fooled by the smoke and mirrors. Here are the current facts:
(1) According to TH, the one pet per person thing is (unfortunately) a go.Devs are nerfing first, asking questions later. All non-CHs (your customers) will be limited to EITHER a creature, OR a faction pet,OR a droid. With the exception of the probot, all droids have such low ham that they are one hit killable in combat. Mobs ofter take their aggression out on your pets, so this is bad. As for the probot, it lasts a little longer than the others, but has very weak attack power because it has been nerfed into oblivion. Fact remains, even with the nerfs tocreatures and limited use of faction pets (basically pvp only), most players will still choose creatures and faction pets over droids in battle.
(2) If droids are not taken into combat at the outset they have no usefulness. In order to call the droid in the field, you have to pitch a camp. You can do everything in a camp that you can do with a medical droid so there is no reason to call, or even have such a droid. The one pet rule means that no one will use droids.
(3) Faction pets will not be based on rank any time soon. No one will be calling multiple droids anytime soon. The only thing that is clear is that all non-CHs will soon be limited to ONLY ONE creature/faction pet/droid soon. TH said they are "thinking" about allowing certain classes to call multiple droids. There has been nothing promised, except that they are nerfing everything. If such changes were to be implemented it will be months from now. Also, since the details given were about a vague as possible, the multiple pet idea TH floated probably won't even pan out to what our wishful thinking desires.
(4) The devs are not thinking about increasing droid functionality a whole bunch. If you troll around on the DE forums you will see that the devs are not giving DE's the droid functionality or repair needs theDEs have requested, but are instead adding DE ONLY (and therefore unsellable) combat droids to turn DEs into another CH class. DEs never asked for this. Multiple droids will mean jack to players when all droids do the exact same thing (and are all equally worthless because the devs have not acted upon the functionality requests), and only DE's can enjoy the changes made. DEs asked for combat droids to sell, devs answer it by making them CHs.
(NOTE: The droid handler idea is crazy...since when does any droid in the Star Wars Universe need a handler)
From all of this you should come out with 3 things:
(1) Droids are about to become less desirable
(2) Nothing definite is in the works to give multiple droids any time soon
(3) Even if multiple dorids is implemented, there is nothing in the works to make multiple droids more desirable objects (except to droid engineers)
Droids are getting nerfed, there is nothing definite actually in the works to counteract the nerf, and any counteractions probably won't matter anyway.
This is why I would like to see some definite proposal before I fee comfortable witn ANY faction pet/droid nerfs.
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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.
Hear!!Hear!!