Creature Adjustments....

[Krystalus]

This caught my eye....

Most everyone here on the boards and a lot of other players in game are aware that creatures, as a whole, in the game need to be changed.  The developers have tracked all the different "creature issues" since launch and there needs to be some changes made to the game to make things right.  These changes are good for the game and good for the players overall, but many of these changes are going to take some getting used to.

To start, I wanted to talk to you guys about creatures in general and in Part 2, I'll address the specific Creature Handler changes tomorrow.

In short, all creatures are out of balance to some degree or another.  Armor, special attacks, difficulty levels, pet usage, pet commands and creature attack abilities all have their own unique characteristics.  As things have developed in the game worlds and all of the players have learned what all the various advantages and disadvantages are, its apparent that some creatures are overpowered, some are underpowered, attack and damage (both from creature to player and player to creature) isn't a good interaction and really while some of these changes are going to effectively alter creatures in the world, these are all good changes.  Now, in the aftermath of these changes, there are going to be a lot of specific questions.  I will work to answer all the questions, but understand that the changes that are going to be made to the various unique characteristics of any given creature are going to be based on internal game functions so some changes are going to come with caveats.  

And don't forget, you'll be able to see what the changes are like when this gets pushed to the Test Center...

Some of the issues are that lower level players are telling us that missions and game play is too hard and higher level players are telling us the game is too easy.  Some pets are wildly over powered while others are nearly invulnerable except against special attacks.  Also, the developers wanted to make sure creature attacks and defenses made more sense.  I can only give you a basic example of the types of changes that are being made because there are so many creatures and almost all of them have been tweaked.  To give you a general idea of what we did, lower level critters (30 and below) had a decrease in armor ratings, higher level critters (30 and above) had a level adjustment (if they were way out of balance), critters of similar level and similar abilities stayed as they should be and special attacks are mostly going to stay the same.  Like I said, this is very basic, but it gives some perspective to the issue as a whole.

This all translates to good game sensibilities and more fairness and balance in the game.

This first post is meant to give you an idea of what's coming, but we also want to get your feelings too.  Now, I know there is going to be a big response to this thread, so I am going to want to gather as much information as possible, so please stay on topic  

I will check in on the thread later tonight and I will collect all your on-topic, positive, curious posts and get them answered by the dev tomorrow.

Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Assistant Community Relations Manager

Of course I am going to take in as much player information as possible and FWIW, Master Creature handlers arent going to feel much...

Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Assistant Community Relations Manager

[Krystalus]

Starting off, I'd like to say that there are a lot of questions and opinions in the first part of this topic.  I'll be pulling questions and some of the constructive opinions from the boards and getting you some dev answers as soon as I can.  For now, I'd like to address the logical conclusion of this Creature Balance and how it is going to effect the Creature Handler Profession.

 

Players have seen a rise in pet usage over the past few weeks because obviously, having a pet in a Massively Multiplayer game has a fantastic advantage.  Players with pets essentially get their own private MOBs (Mobile Object) to fight with them and for them.  It's a player's own personal tank and it's a boost to damage and attack, a blocker for attackers and the list of advantages go on.  With that being said, that's all fun stuff, so we want to keep it in and keep it fun, but make it balanced.  If you are curious, there is an easy way to test how imbalanced this can get.  If a player and their pet can do a whole lot of things that a two players CAN'T do, then something is wrong.  Otherwise, pets become replacements for multiple players.  Go out with your friends who are Creature Handlers or who have really powerful pets and play the differences with them.

 

Another issue that is being addressed is that Non-Creature Handlers have pets that are of such level and ability that it is a free pass into higher level content.  Those two advantages alone are an invitation for every player to have pets.  In any MMO, that invitation passes by word-of-mouth like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and it cause a stampede.

 

These are great advantages to have and a lot of players are leveraging these advantages (a huge number actually).  Now, in the rush to claim this glorious, imbalanced prize, players are hitting the Creature Handler Skill tree pretty hard.  Players are smart and they talk to each other and what's happened is that players are exploiting the Creature Handler Skill Tree by taking ONLY the left-most two columns to get the pets and that's it.  So for the cost of two skill trees, players are getting full pet access.  That bargain is too good to be true and it demeans the CH profession because they work through the whole tree without being rewarded much of an advantage.

 

Let me be clear here: it is not the Creature Handler Profession that is over-powered per se.  It is the Creature Handler “dabblers” that are using two specific skill trees (in conjunction with out of balance creatures) to give over-powered boosts to other professions.

 

The goal of the change to the CH profession is the idea of reserving power to players who _truly_ master being a creature handler and make it so they have to really invest in all the skill boxes while reducing the power of "dabblers" and people spending the bare minimum to get the advantages of having powerful pets.

So here are the proposed changes.

To compensate for the lop-sided power-progression (two trees giving you more powerful pets and the other two trees only giving you the ability to train the pets with commands that are of questionable utility since you can just get a fully-trained pet from someone else) the skills have been re-distributed across the skill tree.  Also, there used to be six different skillmods which determine whether or not you can tame or call a particular pet.  That will be changed and now there will be only one skillmod which will tell players what level pet they can summon.

 
MASTER
 lvl+10 / 20 stored transfer +1 active
 
 
Top Tier (left to right)
lvl +4 / useRanged
 lvl +4 /16 stored
 lvl +4 / guard
 lvl +4 / enragepets
 
3rd Tier (left to right)
lvl +3 / useSpecial2
 lvl +3 / 12 stored
 lvl +3 / followOther
 lvl +3 / trick2
 
2nd Tier (left to right)
lvl +2 / useSpecial1
 lvl +2 / 9 stored
 lvl +2 / stay
 lvl +2 / emboldenpets
 
1st  Tier (left to right)
lvl +1
 lvl +1 / 6 stored
 lvl +1 / group
 lvl +1 / trick1
 
NOVICE
lvl 10 / tame follow; store; kill 4 stored
 
Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Assistant Community Relations Manager

Additionally:

* Non-creature handlers limited to level 10 pets (currently it is 15).

* Non-creature handlers get 1 active pet max, regardless of type (faction perk, creature, droid or mount).

Lvl + refers to the max level of pet that you can tame. One skillmod to rule them all. You can tame level 10 pets at novice.  Get a skill above that and you can tame a level 11 pet. Another beside that and you can tame level 12 pets.  Another above that and you get up to level 14 pets, etc. This spreads the power-curve from two skill trees to all of the trees, while pushing more benefit to the highest level skill boxes.

We have removed patrol, Friend and Follow-In-Formation commands because they weren’t used very much and instead we separated trick1 and trick2.  Trick 2 is also now cooler than Trick 1

There are only three new behaviors that have been added at this point: useSpecial1, useSpecial2 and useRanged.  This way, you can order a creature with a ranged attack to use his ranged attack, or order them to use the special attack on-command. This makes things simpler and easier to use and a lot more fun.

The +1 active pet that master creature handlers get will allow them to call a mount, ride it, and still call a level 50 pet to fight for them.  With the additional storage capacity and the ability to transfer pets, this makes skillbox very desirable (which currently, it isn't).

With all of these changes, that leaves an interesting challenge on the table: CHs currently don't take on the full risk of a combat encounter like other combat classes do.  CHs don't have to deal with taking damage or fending off monsters since the monster is engaged by the creature like other combat classes have to deal with.

Because of this, one of the concerns is that while this plan does bring CHs down a bit, it doesn't necessarily put them on equal footing with the other combat classes.  The big question is why would a player not be a CH if they wanted the most offensive power possible?

Here is what we're going to do to address that:  NPCs and creatures will get just a tiny bit smarter, and will realize that when you send a pet to attack them, _you_ are attacking them.  This doesn't mean that they will instantly and always ignore your pet and head straight for you, but they won't just completely ignore you, either.  And if they kill your pet, they'll definitely be attacking you next.

Also, if you heal a pet that is fighting something else, that other creature will "see" it and might choose to respond to that action by attacking you.  Probably not a very big chance of that happening, but they won't just completely ignore you as they do now.

On the upside, Creature Handlers can train Mounts.  Player mounts have been added and can now ride Bols, Brackasets, Kaadu, Carrion Spats, Dewbacks, and Falumpasets.  To get a mount, mounts must be your pet AND trained as a mount.  Creature Handlers will be training the mounts and players can either buy them as trained mounts or players with pets can take their pets to a Creature Handler (with the correct skill) to be trained as a mount.  Bio Engineers can create mountable pets but can't automatically train them unless they have Creature Handler skills.

Another benefit to all of this is that players will be seeing more types of babies spawning.  Before, the number of baby spawns was limited due to balance issues and now we can open that up.  In addition to making more types of babies spawn, we're also going to add "rare" baby types that spawn very infrequently.  We are also increasing the number of stored pets for master-creature handlers.

In summary, the Creature Handler Profession has been changed to bring it into better balance with the rest of the professions, it is simpler to use and more equitable for the players who are Creature Handlers.  People who are not Creature Handlers don't get all the benefits of the profession by climbing an uneven skill tree.  

With that being said, Creature Handling is the most popular profession so these changes were considered with great effort to keeping things fun to play and keeping them balanced in a Massively Multiplayer World.  

We hope you like the changes and I look forward to hearing your input.

Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Assistant Community Relations Manager

[Krystalus]

So.... what's everyones thoughts on having ONE pet out total? No more private armies of pets, droids and Faction Soldiers.

Master Creature handlers can have a BIG pet out and ride a Bol into combat while it look like everyone else will be stuck with a chicken or Kaadu.... I can't wait for vehicles to come out as they will be faster then mounts and I won't be stuck riding a chicken...

[Rowah]

I think that same mentality could be applied to a bunch of other Classes

I think its a needed move and I look forward to how it will change the game.  I dont think this change will affect F'oria at all as Being a Master CH your not just grabbing the uber part of CH  And it actually makes people desire to MCH(since the can add the mount in as well.)

It will be interesting to see if the healing thing applies to all.  Currently as a Doc if I never fire, I can heal without fear.  WIll things now sometimes hit me?

[Omote]

That was a huge exploit in EQ.  Healers would never get aggro from healing pets.
When the druid (In)Complete Heal came out,  my mage friend and I duoed some very difficult stuff;  At L58 for me and 60 for him, we could take on most Umbral Plains mobs; if he botted his cleric too, we could do the bosses sometimes.

[Kurdun]

Is that the first official dev anti-dabbler stance? That's a pretty slippery slope in a skills based game.

[Dedolito]

I'm not so happy with the reduction of faction pets from 3 to 1.  Well, I'm glad Imps can't have 3 ATSTs, but for regular personel?  

I dunno about other people, but I go thru a lot of rebel pets.  They are the only thing that can get me past the stormtrooper camps that I get assigned.  Not so much for their ability to kill, but it divides up the incoming fire long enough for me to start doing damage.

Personally, I think that the cost of the rebel pets and the inability to heal them after death justifies the ability to have more than 1 out, or at least one or two in addition to a regular pet.    

I dunno.  Make up a formula that multiplies max damage by HAM and limit the number of pets out at a time to some sum of those numbers.

[Rowah]

I agree with the Faction pet thing Dedo.  Its just plain silly for us to not have 3 of those out.  Now 3 of those.. a CH pet and a droid?  Hmm thats a bit much

One AT or 3, the problem people are whining about now is they are to easy to die for the points they cost.

[Saean]

Few things.  First off I really like to see the promise of actual thought put into decisions.  That has seemed to be seriously lacking with many of the major "balancing" changes that have been made in the past.  Only time will tell if it was just the new and better pr spin put on it by Th or if it was actually thought.  

Second I'm somewhat divided on the issue of them not wanting pets to replace other players.  On the one side it's a great idea I mean any game of this type is about the community and players playing with other players.  On the other side any game thus far released has caused innumerable problems for casual gamers due to the exact problem of NEEDING other players to do anything interesting.  

That said I don't like that nearly since release (even with all the nerfs) adding a pet or two to the party (be it an at/st or early on ar2 pets or even recently the giant grauls?) adds so much more to the combat abilities of a party then adding any character or even then any group of characters.  Speaking from a tanks perspective it is very disheartening to know that the only way I stand much of a chance on giant hunts such as Kyrat dragon hunting is to pull out a pistol and watch a graul go to town.  

I don't really think this method of changing things will fix that particular problem.  I do think though it will fix the balance of the ch class in terms of there will no longer be people only interested in 2 lines.  While Rowah would have you believe doctors are broken and a terrible class it is another class that suffers from the 2 line problem.  I really hope they sit down and do some advanced thinking about ALL of the classes.  Not just say ok well once again for now we have bottled up the pet problem lets go back to ignoring all classes and find the next exploit that we can create then nerf.

[F'oria]

Acutally it will affect me quite a bit. And in ways I am genuinly worried about. While max pet level will remain the same I am concerned that my higher level pets levels will change. My gurreck, currently a level 50, sounds as if the level will change. I am also concerned about the "one level to rule them all" because this takes my max number of pet levels from 70 down to 60. And if my gurreck is now a level 60 pet i can only have one out. No more two giant sand beetles, no more desert gurreck and gurreck, no more gapping spider hunter and gapping spider, no more handark drifter and handark rock smasher, no more delerious merek avenger and merek assasin, as you can see my entire way of playing CH was based around two creatures that I perfectly fit into that 70 alowed pet levels. I used them to run guard duty and rescue group members. It will take alot of getting used to and over all im not very excited about it. I agree some of the changed they are making are very needed, as a master CH, I can have three grand wrixes, one battle droid and three faction pets, that is a bit nuts. Not to mention the at st herds I see running around.  The CH dabblers, im very glad they are doing this but I see very bad things for people like saean who have excellent characters but whos skill points are very spread out. Will they do the same thing with scout dabblers, or pisotoleer dabblers. You see where im going with this having a pvp player you worked hard at to get the combos nerfed because the devs didnt think far enough ahead to see how huge a character could be with a little thinking.
I'm not even sure if I will be allowed a second pet other than a mount, or If I am will it be pointless because I can only have two grand wrixes out that are all puney as mottled wrixes are now.  A number of us have asked thunderheart just these questions on the CH boards and If you have time to second your opinion that these questions need to be answered that would be wonderful.

[Rowah]

Dabbling is fine, and I dont think they should remove that, it is after all a BIG pluss for SWG.

Saeans point about Docs beign a two line class is key.  A doc with 2 lines is just as effective as I am with all 4 and MDOC.  The only difference? Well he has to spend cash on those handy dandy buffs and Revives.  He cant make anything himself(well toher than Stim E's and do a Dang fine job of it )

With 3 lines, he is 100% as effective as me(first line gives cure poison and cure disease.)  And Taking Master Doc is not very enticing.  I did it because I like having the title... I mean what other reason is there

There has to be a way they can balance the skill progression such that you can dabble and NOT be as effective as the guy who went all the way up.

[Oracus]

dont forget them commando flamer dabblers.
i mean taking commando just for a flamer.. like 90% of the server has done.

KIthh Kannon

[Omote]

right now I resemble that remark!

but at least I intend to actually master commando.

[Saean]

I see very bad things for people like saean who have excellent characters but whos skill points are very spread out.

Well currently I don't resemble that remark .  Out of the grand total of 250 points 177 of mine are tied up in melee combat skills.  That number will grow before it shrinks.

[Krystalus]

The devs posted part 3 of their creature changes:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=8551#M8551

A couple things worth noting.

1). Master Creature Handlers get to keep 3 pets, and those players who have CH at the level to get the additional pet (probably moved to tier 4) will be able to have 2 out, but they will restrict the amount of XP you get.

2). Pet levels will stay at 70.

3). "One pet out at a time" will change to one pet plus a surgical droid if you are a medic, droid engineers will be able to have multiple droids out (they are discussing) and any other class combo that it makes sense to have  multiple pets out.

4). As per #3, they are discussing making faction rank determine the number and quality of faction pets you can have out. Also Restricting AT-ST's to only one out at a time and more restrictions after that.

5). Bio Engineers can downgrade the more advanced 4 mounts that non CH can't ride. The Kaadu and the chicken are both level 9 and the only mounts players will be able to ride without CH skills. So a non CH can in theory ride a Bol, but the Bol will have been made from Meatlump parts and Squall DNA.  

6). Thunderheart posted the skilltree on the first page of replies. Worth checking out.