Development Cycle Archive
Thread: IC 1-6: Combat Roles; Creature Handler
But it's generally agreed that pets are overpowered. By a fair degree. Controlling more than one pet is mitigated by the reality that some pets are just beyond reasoning in their power. I don't recommend massive nerfs to pets or abilities per se. That's probably going to happen anyway, as the combat and mob systems get continually tweaked.
What I do recommend is that Creature Handling be a more expensive and risky undertaking.
- The tiers should be more expensive. Instead of a 5-4-3-2 progression, make it 9-8-7-6 (with Novice CH being 10 and Master being 5). That's 135 skill points used right there
- Two lines of Novice Scout for CH cost 43 skill points. Now it's 178 skill points just to master CH.
- Make Pet Stimpacks only usable by Novice Medics (+15 skill points for a total of 193)
This could mean that taking out the CHer is easier.
Finally, if a CHer goes down and the pets are still alive, this happens:
- Pets take a massive hit to their effectiveness (debuff speed and chance-to-hit)
- Eventually go wild and flee. Without the master, wild animals become harder to control.
- They can be harvested
- They can be affected by player traps
- NPCs use traps
Now the goal is as it should be: take out the CHer.
I am so irritated by the last 2 posts. I can't for the life of me think that either of them have ever been or are creature handlers in anyway. I'm so sick of hearing that creature handlers are not in any of the movies and blah blah blah. There was a creature handler in episodes 2 and 6. No one can say what other skills the creature handlers had because the creature handler's character was not the focus of the movie. But, if you want to bring up movies, I will join you. They had 3 other Starwars movies after episode 6 with creature handlers in them. They were not very popular, not done by g. Lucas, and didn't have a Jedi in them. Some of the books have creature handlers in them, no not all of them. Let me ask you this. How many swordsman, fencers, pikeman, teras kasi, weapon smiths, commandos, architects, armor smiths, image designers, bio-engineers, combat medics, doctors, merchants, rangers, droid engineers, tailors are in the movies? Let alone with big parts in the movies.
This is not reality. It's a game. True, if it was reality then most people couldn't train more than a large dog. But, when calling for a nerf like that, again!!, It's totally bogus. And, upping the number of skill points required for master creature handlers is a load of horse sh!t. Before the patch, the master creature handlers with all the pets they could have out, could in no way take out a low level commando or a bh. If any thing the so-called balance we had before that stupid patch is now a landslide against the creature handlers. The commando and bh can whip through 6 creature handlers solo.
Man!, I'm so sick of people like this. Most of the people that make comments like this are non-creature handlers and have no clue how fun it is and how little damage the pets really do to begin with. What bothers me the most is how often the devs seem to listen to these posts and take the advice of people that never even play the profession. But I guess that ignorance is bliss.
Stop the nerfing of all professions. Listen to the people that play the professions and not the ranting of idiots.
Darniaq wrote:
Apparently unlike many people, I don't have a problem with pets being used in MMOG combat. It makes a bit of sense to seek strength in numbers when it's lacking in yourself as a character. I think this is particularly true in SWG since it's so prevalent in Lore.
But it's generally agreed that pets are overpowered. By a fair degree. Controlling more than one pet is mitigated by the reality that some pets are just beyond reasoning in their power. I don't recommend massive nerfs to pets or abilities per se. That's probably going to happen anyway, as the combat and mob systems get continually tweaked.
What I do recommend is that Creature Handling be a more expensive and risky undertaking.
The remaining 57 skill points would go to whatever. That's, at best, two Novice Brawler or Marksman lines, or one line and Tier III in one advanced combat line.
- The tiers should be more expensive. Instead of a 5-4-3-2 progression, make it 9-8-7-6 (with Novice CH being 10 and Master being 5). That's 135 skill points used right there
- Two lines of Novice Scout for CH cost 43 skill points. Now it's 178 skill points just to master CH.
- Make Pet Stimpacks only usable by Novice Medics (+15 skill points for a total of 193)
This could mean that taking out the CHer is easier.
Finally, if a CHer goes down and the pets are still alive, this happens:
- Pets take a massive hit to their effectiveness (debuff speed and chance-to-hit)
- Eventually go wild and flee. Without the master, wild animals become harder to control.
- They can be harvested
- They can be affected by player traps
- NPCs use traps
Now the goal is as it should be: take out the CHer.
Some Creature Handler specific content, and...
Either give rare tameables a VIABLE reason to be so incredibly rare, or make them un-rare. There is no justification for some of our new tameables to be so rare, NONE. Sorry, but "red dragon," status symbol doesn't cut it...
And of course, I would love to tame a Taun-Taun, just to say I had one.
dhcpSilicon wrote:
I'm still waiting for Rangers and/or CHs to be able to use specials from a mount, and still waiting for mount armor and tack. That would make it a LOT more fun from a roleplaying perspective.
This idea is good. I like it. Sorry if someone said it earlier, but resuggesting good ideas is swell!
---------
CH should be the cavalry of SWG. master CH should be able to self heal while on mounts to further this goal. specials might be allowed but perhaps at a reduced effect/accuracy/damage etc. i use my pets to tank because the way the game is designed for combat things that are worth killing one hit kill and tanking them yourself is suicide. this isnt the way it should be. i think that making us mounted cavalry of some sort fits better. i dont mean get rid of tanking ability just have certain high level mounts that can be used for a mounted cavalry role.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
---------
ability to command pet specials. they currently dont work correctly. how about the ability to actually control the pet from a first person perspective.
What offensive abilities?
---------
limited ability to either heal or conduct special attacks while mounted.
What defensive abilities?
---------
the inherent speed of the mount in a cavalry role along with inate class defenses is good enough
What unique abilities?
---------
we already have the ability to tame and heal our pets along with training them. i think that we should be able to designate one pet only out of inventory to be pack animals much like droid storage. we also need the ability to remove the aggressive nature of certain pets and be able to stunt their growth for sale. stunted pets should have their stats reduced by percentage of growth and no armour unless it is full grown.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
----------
mobile cavalry riding about the battlefield lending assistance in a quick manner as needed.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
----------
we are already dependent on doctors for stims BE for petsstims and vit packs and artisans for pet food. i think that we should also have to purchase saddle kits to make mounts from artisans and there should be customizable saddles that can be placed on animals that do different things based on the cavalry role.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
-----------
mobile support in combat. the lack of ability to truly fight from the saddle is saddening.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
------------
think of the ST in star wars riding their dewbacks across the sands. ill reiterate we should be the cavalry all other roles can stem off that.
What i would like to see is a whole breeding program so that they can be used in different ways
1:Breeding two animals of the same kind formaking more powerful young pets but still grow to same level as an adult.
2:Breeding animals for a sort of farming that you can choose to havest them to make profit i.e. instead of just havesting one type all three. (could be useful to chefs, armoursmiths and tailors) plus in this sort of breeding you could milk them while you are getting a herd. but you will need a new building i.e a Ranch or Farm or Barn this could begin a new line of cities.
3:cross breeding two types of creatures could be fun but really hard you will have to find more pets that would mate together but it could go wrong and end up them fighting to the death. this could be god that you cross breed a rancor with a graul being tht the rancor is more powerful he takes the shape but the abilities of the graul could be past on to the rancor baby.
Also what i would like to see is that creature handler stays the same but there is a third profession i.e. like this:
scout-creature handler-Herder or Breeder or something like that so you master creature handler then go on to better things
Just one more point i think star wars fans want to see is Stormtroopers on dewbacks, Rebels on Tautons, Tuskens on banthas and Jawas on rontos something in that department would make me and alot of people happy
Here is my big problem currently with the ch profession.
Grinding to get to master ch takes a LONG time, with not as many benefits as i had hoped. Wow, i can now use 2 pets, except i really can't. Any pets worth using must be able to withstand a beating, but to have out 3 pets, this is impossible. I think a master ch should be able to have ALOT more than only 70 lvls worth of pets. Now i know some of you are thinking, "madness," or "that's way unbalanced," and the reply is simple; no,it's not. As mentioned previously, as it stands now, pets don't deal alot of dmg, which in my opinion is ridiculous. No offense, but i should be more afraid of the dmg potential of a rancor and not that of an LLC or scatter pistol, etc. This is not the case though. The fact that a tusken raider deals more dmg that most high lvl pets is absolutely incredible. If we are not to get more pet lvls (which i already know we won't), then it would at least be nice to see pets live up to their reputations. For example, the rancor, one of the most feared creatures in the galaxy, seems weak. First off, needs higher kinetic resists (its suppose to be a close combat beast). the rancor should have all high lvl resists, but no 100% ones. second, a rancor should be dealing considerable dmg, like 500-1000, like a decent dmg sliced llc. And lastly, much higher ham. The rancor should be like a lvl 70 pet, but with all these previous mentioned bonuses and like 30k of ham at least. Make the pets as strong as they were in the movies and SW lore, hell, we invest enough sp and grind alot of ch xp to at least deserve that.
My second main complaint, which has been mentioned in the ch forum, is the role of taming. What's the point of taming? honestly, there is none, cuz the same cool, ultra rare pet i just trained in the wild, a BE can make a better one. There is no reason to go tame a pet compared to buying one. In my opinion, here's what taming should do. Depending on ch and taming lvl, a ch should get taming points, like experimentation points. When the pet is successfully tamed, there should be a standard stat outline of the pet. However, then you can use these taming points in the same way a weaponsmith or armorsmith, etc uses experimentation points to pump stats. Such as ham, dmg, spd, resists, etc. This gives ch's a reason to tame a pet and lets them customize their pet as something uniquely theirs (and all these bonuses are lost if sold). to balance it, maybe put a max on each attribute pumpable depending on the type of creature. I.e., a rancor could have all its stats pumped to a higher lvl than a kaadu. Also, how much each stat is increased per point used would vary based on the creature lvl. So 1 point of ch taming on a rancor ham might increase it 1k, where as it would only increase a kaadu's by maybe 100. This i think really makes taming worthwhile, and allows for the customization of pets that it seems people want. I mean, if a weaponsmith can customize a gun and make it something unique, why shouldn't a creature handler of high lvl be able to have extreme creature mastery and breed and raise a creautre to his likings. Look at real life creautre taming: you want a show dog, you raise it and train it as such, you want a house dog, you don't put forth as much training, and you want a guard dog, you train it to be more vicious. If i wanted a guard creature, why not allow the ch to pump the resists, to make it a protector, if you want an attack beast, why not allow them to raise the ham and dmg. To me, this seems like it would have been an obvious direction for creature taming from the start. Please think about tihs, since i think it is an awesome idea, that would make a ch's pet he tamed himself something unique and speical to him, that he has bonded to and represents that he himself raised it, and with a purpose in mind as in why he raised it.