CH Changes Part 3

[Juntao]

New info has been posted to the SWG forums on the upcoming CH changes. Here is the first part of the post, check the forums for the rest of the posts and other information! You can also find the entire thread here

I want to thank our CH Player Correspondent, Vertexon, for gathering all the main CH questions and issues and to all the folks who gave us good, usable feedback. I�ve taken the information to the developers and I have some answers to your questions and concerns as well as a few changes based on your input. I�d also like to send a round of applause from myself to the dev who stayed late into the evening to help get this done.

First, I�ll address the CH issues from the Correspondent and then a bunch of questions taken randomly from the board:

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Top Five Issues with the Proposed Creature Handler Changes

1. Overwhelming support for returning the third active pet (from Management III).

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One of the negative impacts of this additional pet is that it makes advancement through the skilltree too fast. The devs agree that it is more fun to have more pets out, and with the creature balance pass it shouldn't be over-powering to keep this +1 Active Pet at Management 3, but then we have to do something about the boost to the rate of progression that it provides (which in general is too fast anyway).

So, we are going to leave this in and instead change the XP-granting function so that you don't get double the XP for having two pets active.

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2. The proposal doesn't seem to affect the power of dabblers in the right way. If someone takes just the first two trees from Thunderheart's diagram, they can effectively command a CL 30 pet with access to all the commands they need (follow, kill, special1, special2, rangedattack). The latter three attacks (special1, special2, and rangedattack) should probably be moved to the tops of different disciplines to create a larger barrier to access.

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On the one hand, the devs disagree that it's much of an advantage to be able to invoke special attacks on-demand or that someone who has mastered half the profession is a mere 'dabbler' and ought to be limited to less than half as many pets as a Master. Pets are pretty good about using their specials even without being told to. useRanged, on the other hand, is quite a perk. So I can see moving that to the master skillbox.

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3. Lots of people would prefer keeping the total pet levels at 70 instead of 60.

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After discussing this internally, we've decided it's not a problem to leave the max level at 70 rather than at 60.

Also, the devs agree with the players who pointed out that the proposed skilltree too aggressive in terms of shifting the power-curve from the low-end of the skilltree to the high end. It's not very cool for Novice Creature Handlers to get the exact same pets as non-creature Handlers, and the advancement for someone advancing across the skill tree (rather than up a single tree at a time) isn't very good.

So Novice creature handlers get +2 pet levels. Another +1 pet level is given to each skill tree at both the lowest box and the highest.

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4. Concerns about only one 'pet' of any kind out at a time.

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Our plan here is to first i

[Juntao]

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If I an only have 1 stormtrooper at a time, that kinda sucks. That is also very empowering to imperials since their single pet can be an ATST and the only rebel pet is a guerrilla type guy that does not have very good stats to stand by himself. My point is I think the personel (with exception to atst) should still be able to be called in 3's. I mean they are not overpowered since if they die, they are dead.


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As per above, we want to base this on faction-rank. And ATST's are such a special-case, they're most likely to be limited to one-per regardless, perhaps even with other restrictions. Not really ready to discuss more on this front yet.






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Overall, I like the changes. I am confused on one issue, though, and that is the \"+1 pet\" as Master and the lack of \"+1 pet\" in the Management line.


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Per above, we're leaving it in, but with an adjustment to the xp-granting function so that 2 pets doesn't double your rate of xp gain.






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Given that the tree has been completely reconfigured, are you going to allow untraining of CH skills w/o loosing the XP (temporarily, of course)? Please don't make us have to obtain the xp earned *again*


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No, sorry.






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You said:

On the upside, Creature Handlers can train Mounts. 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.2a) Where will the ability to make a mount off a pet will be on the CH tree?


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See above.






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2b) Will bio-engineers be able to lower the CL of our creations? With the limit of CL 10, non-CH can only ride Kaadu & Carrion Spat. Very limited choices.


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Yes.






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What happens when melee characters, like me (Teras Kasi/Creature Handler) send their pets in with the new *smarter* mobs? It is already difficult, sometimes impossible for me to keep the mobs on the pets and not on me (which, I think, needs to be addressed since ranged fighters don't have to worry about aggro at all while their pet is still up - when fighting one mob of course). Will mobs now attack me

more often when I come into melee range to fight after sending in my pets?


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The same thing that happens now when you're grouped with your pet, but even if you aren't grouped with your pet.






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Does this mean that even if I were a Colonel in my faction, I could only have one trooper with me? And I wouldn't even be able to have my trusty probot out at the same time? handler levels restrictions, determining the max challenge level of faction pet the faction member can control. Let rank also determine how many of those pets may be used at one time, with arbitrary breakpoints set for controlling a second and third faction pet. Make faction rank the

[Juntao]

Nice diagram of proposed CH Tree

[url]http://users.bigpond.net.au/dhask/swg/[/url]