Ranger Archive
Thread: Ungrouped Pets Now Eat 40% Of Harvests
JBMat wrote:Sounds fair to me. I have said all along, solo means you and a weapon, not you, a weapon and a pet.
You want the extra help, you gotta pay for it somehow.
Just my opinion, not a flame.
JB
You do pay.. I don't use pets any more, but when I did, I paid in stims, food, etc. etc.
Pets may or may not be a weapon, depending on how you hunt and the pets you have, or they may be your primary weapon if you are a Master CH/Master Ranger. If you just use a pet as a distraction, then its a tool.. but so are traps. How would we feel if you lost 40% of your harvet for tossing a Phen Dart?
The harvest thing was put in place to keep the group harvest reasonable... but since your pets don't harvest it shouldn't apply.
Personally, I think pets are more trouble than they are worth and I feel I am a much better hunter since getting rid of my pets and pet skills. But to each his own... if you hunt over a pet, with a pet, or simply group a mount or a droid, you shouldn't get penalized by 40%.. that's just plain CRAZY.
Beau -
Can you tell your Pdart to attack the tortur bull #1 and keep him engaged while you shoot attortur bull #2.
What if I am grouped with a Commando/TKM with no scout ability, why should I take a 40% reduction in harvest when she can't harvest a thing?
I agree, pets are a giant pain in the butt. I seldom use mine. More trouble than they are worth. Can't keep up with a swoop, get lost, run off. I about never group with a CH less than Master, it's a pain when the pet goes south in combat, as I now have to take out my targets and the CH's targets, as his main weapon, that stupid bug, just ran off.
But, I still contend, pets are a member of the group. You get extra xp when grouped with a pet (Strike1) Pets are semi-autonomous and attack without constant attention (Strike 2). Pets heal on their own, over time - weapons don't (Steeerike 3).
This has been argued since group harvest came in. Originally I was told that pets were not to be considered a "group" for harvesting purposes. Never could find that post tho, go figure.
Anyhow, I again say a group is a group is a group, and a pet by any other name is still a group member (apologies to Will S. for the paraphrase).
JB
for sale, one used minor sludge panther, used to be a CG but he got nerfed, Cheap, Oh wait, I can't transfer, rats.
pyclone wrote:
sherriffjustice wrote:
JB, a CH's pet is his weapon, plain and simple. It should not count against harvests.CH is not intended to be a combat class get over it
Well if they are not combat then what are they? Medic/entertainer? no, I can't heal anybody's wounds with my pet. Artisan? Hmmmm, no. I don't think my pet has ever crafted anything for me. Let's see . . . Smuggler? ahhh no, they aren't very good for that either. A pet isn't very good at setting up camps or throwing traps so it can't be a scout/ranger profession. Hmmmm. what could it be? I know, let's examine their skillset maybe there's a clue in there.
/enrage
/embolden
/attack
/attackspecial1
/attackspecial2
/rangedattack
/patrol
/guard
The groupharvest penalty was put in place when they allowed people in groups each to harvest from a single creature. Before that, only one person could harvest in a group from one creature and everyone was upset because first come first serve isn't exactly fair. So in order to balance it, they allowed everyone to harvest from that one creature, but at only a percentage while grouped. It was never intended to be a penalty to discourage grouping with someone, or to compensate for being able to kill a creature faster or easier. Therefore, grouping with a pet should not count as the pet does not and can not harvest from the creature itself so the reason for the penalty does not apply.
And don't tell me it's cuz the pet is mangling the meat. with as many blaster hits I get on a creature, with or without a pet, before it finally falls, that meat would be fully cooked and the hide would be seared black if your logic had any value to this arguement. Plus, IRL, you can train a hunting dog to NOT dammage the meat at all as it retrieves your prey, but the comparison doesn't even apply here since hunting dogs usually are never used to attack, just to root out and retrieve.
JBMat wrote:Beau -
What if I am grouped with a Commando/TKM with no scout ability, why should I take a 40% reduction in harvest when she can't harvest a thing?
This also is not fair. There should be a skillcheck involved when determining if there is a pentalty. if there is only one group member with the ability to harvest, then there should be no harvest penalty. If this is too difficult to impliment, then why not simply allow the first person to harvest from that creature 100% of the resources, everyone else gets 60%. I got to the creature first so I get the best resources.
But then thinking about this a bit, the devs prolly like it this way. They already think there are too many resouces in the game and keep thinking of ways to get us to use them up, so allowing people to get more resources again prolly isn't a popular idea with them.
Ek-
Your pet doesn't harvest, nor does my Commando/TK partner. Yet I have to harvest at 60%. You do make a real convincing argument that a CH is a combat class (really combat support, like Rangers, but hey, it was your argument)
Anyhow, what is the difference between your pet Rancor who can't harvest, and my partner who can't harvest. Besides the fact that your rancor does not noogie you, or laff at your attire, I contend they are both equal when it comes to hunting. They are good tanks, great killers, can't harvest for crap. So why shouldn't the Rancor count as a group member.
Ok, challenge to all CHs-
Tell me why pets don't count as a group members. Make me smart.
My arguments -
They are semi-autonomous, as they can attack things attacking you or them.
They do not need constant guidance to attack. They can switch targets on their own, if attacked, once the original target is down.
They can heal on their own. You can use stims to heal them. You can use trick to heal mind wounds. They run off if their HAM is really low.
They can't harvest, but then again, neither can some of my hunting buddies.
I say they count as group members. Make me think different (Clue 1, I am gonna have to see some convincing arguments here, not drivel, no saying "it's not fair" cuz life is not fair, not something you once said you saw or heard. I want facts. If you say SOE said it, give me the link. CSRs don't count, they are not even close to being 50% right. TH or above. The book with the game is outdate, don't count either.
Ya'll have fun, and continue harvesting at your 60% rate.
JB
JBMat wrote:Ek-
Ok, challenge to all CHs-
Tell me why pets don't count as a group members. Make me smart.
JB
Re read my second post to counter your TKA in a group example. And my first post to counter your group member arguement. I agree, a person with a pet is not the same as one without and cannot be considered truely "solo" (pets are way more than just a CH's weapon), but the penalty is not in place to encourage people to play the game solo, or punish those who hunt in groups.
Ask yourself "what is this penalty for?" "why did the devs put it in place?" "what are they trying to simulate or compensate for?" "what would happen if it were changed or removed?" . . . I could go on, but just think like a dev for a second and you may see where I am coming from.
when a ch is incapped, after everything attacking it is down the pet will sit there and do nothing. another group member would be able to continue fighting. though this is a middle arguement because if the ch is down the pet will continue attacking the thing it was attacking before.
on a side note i have found that i dont have a problem with the pet group harvest. if i have my pet grouped when i kill the animal i get group rate, but if i dont (having it previously grouped and disbanded) i get regular rate.
JBmat's argument is completely unconvincing. Pets can only be used in an autonomous manner against mobs that really weren't a threat to begin with. Pets, even large ones, have terrible offense. They hit random HAM bars and their damage is largely resisted. They are a defensive tool like armor, not weapons. Even then a closer comparison would be to a PSG, since both essentially wear out over the course of a single fight. Do we penalise people 40% of harvests for wearing PSGs or armor?
JBmat's argument does not take into account Fred's case: player rides to combat on a mount, dismounts, parks his mount, fights, rides away. JBmat argues this player deserves to take a 40% harvest penalty. Likewise for the player who has a utility droid following him around.
The only valid reason to assess a penalty against a profession or tactic is to offset a tangible game-balance advantage gained from employing such. JBmat concedes Creature Handler has no such advantage, going as far as to say the profession is not a combat profession. That is a ludicrous position: before the Train Mount ability was added, the profession was 100% oriented towards using creatures in combat.
Silo:
DIsbanding the pet(or a player) to get around the harvest reduction was considered to be a bad thing by the devs so they set it up to check for that from the start.
You misunderstand. You are talking about grouping with the creature in combat and disbanding to harvest. What was happening was I would group with my pet while selecting missions, disband the pet, go out and fight, and get hit with the penalty. The pet was not grouped in combat. When I noticed this was happening, I killed the next few mobs without having the pet attack at all, and still took the penalty. Meaning, merely having the pet at all was causing the penalty to be applied. When I stored and recalled the pet, the problem went away. IOW, once you had grouped with the pet, the "you're grouped" flag was set and wasn't being unset. I haven't had a chance to see if anything like this is happening with players, too.
I noticed in my MCH days that most people have had this pre-concieved misconception that pets are these helpers that are an added bonus to players, magically becoming some unfair addidition, but as already stated, a CH's weapon isnt an FWG5, but his PET. He spends his points to get a pet, its not like the pet magically becomes some overpowered addition without penalities involved.
The devs nerf CH again LMAO. They believe the same thing
thank god i dropped MCH a long long time ago.
The bonus is a weak argument. Eventually you get all the experience you want and then it doesn't matter any more. In any case: people who do not group with their pets don't get a bonus, but currently may be taking a 40% harvest penalty anyway.
Change pets to find the one with the right attacks, much as I change pistols to suit the mission.
There are no pets with non-kinetic primary attacks. Some pets have disease, poison or bleeds, but these can't kill worthwhile targets on their own.
JBmat continues to argue that pets are weak, which undermines his argument that their use should incur penalty.