Big changes on the horizon?

[Juntao]

There are some possible big changes coming for creatures in SWG and of course anything that effects creatures will effect us, the creature handlers.

Thunderheart made an interesting post to the SWG Discussion forums today:


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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

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You can follow the thread here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=734571#M734571

I'll try to stay on top of this as it seems it will be greatly impacting creatures in SWG.