I just posted details on the Discussion board, but wanted to bop in here as well and give you a heads up. I urge you to check out the thread over there before reading the rest of this post.

OK, if you've read it:

Yes, this is a nerf to you guys. Given the power that your pets have, I hope you understand why it is that we are obliged to do this. Currently, a novice creature handler can become more effective in combat than a maxxed out combat player, with far less effort. This is simply an effort to bring that in line. We cannot raise up all the combat profession to match you guys, so we're going to have to lower you instead.

I invite comment, but honestly don't see much of a way around taking this action.

Actually I'm glad this is coming.  I'm a Creature Handler/Pistoleer/Squad Leader right now.

I think the difference between effectiveness and enjoyability of Creature Handler and Squad Leader pretty much illustrates the massive need for profession balacing as a whole.  Even as a Creature Handler/Pistoleer I'm kind of agast at much much of a boost I got at Novice Creature Handler compared to Pistoleer. 

I like to be as effective as the next guy of course, but as it is you're kind of screwed if you're NOT a creature handler so I think this is a much needed adjustment. 

Thanks for the heads up Holo.

Holo,

Any idea what level the stats on pets will be reduced too? I have management III and with 2 pets with 9K ham and doing about 250 damage white con mobs on Endor are not exaclty easy to take down though I can do it without risk.

The healing of pets by storing needs to go, use stim packs and give the medics a boost.

thankyou for making the changes relatively quickly. it was needed. what it all is going to boil down to is number 2. if you take a 9k ham pet down to "comparable to a player" does that mean it will only have 1-2k ham now? that could be ugly for PVE.

now that you've announced what you're doing, please hurry and do it (in the case of number 2). because now this board will be flooded with speculation on how much things will be tuned down.

im happy, i still get to steal babies.

I think the most important thing... as you mentioned in your thread on the discussion forum. Pets and droids need a system of certification.

If a marksman with a level 1 carbine skill can not use a lazer carbine, then a novice creature handler should not control a Rancor.

as far as nerfing goes... that's the one thing that I think desperately needs adjusting.

Take you're time with making my pets weaker, and adding a pet maintenance system though. Take all the time you need. Hey you could make it part of the space expansion even.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us before doing number 2. Hopefully you will be able to take from us some good ideas for fixing the class.

I would like to point out a couple of things and ask some questions. You say your going to bring down the stats of the creatures. I really would like to get this clarified. I.E. is a rancor that a master ch would have now no bigger then 1 or 2k ham? if so that is WAY the wrong way to fix this stuff.

Basically what you need to do is this: fix the transfer command. dont allow tansfers of a pet that cant be tamed by other ch's. require them to have the ability before they can get it. that would fix 90% of your problems right there. the other problems are that you have several creatures that are on the non agro list and thus can be tamed early on as a novice ch. Fix those 9k ham pets to be up the ladder a bit, but dont start reducing stats of creatures that we tame. You guys have been in beta a LONG time, I honestly can not see you making such a game changing change as to bring a pets stats down to the size of a human. at least thats how I am reading your post and god knows I hope I am wrong.

so please please, go more into detail on this pet stats change.

Also, please note that if you are doing these things, then for the love of god, please, fix the pet warping issues. its bad enough that I have to pull my pets out in town or in a camp, now we have to worry if our pet is going to poof in a middle of the fight (and it WILL poof to). fix non agro npcs attacking our pets for no reason. fix pet pathing so our pets dont stop every 20 feet. all these issues make the game very annoying and to be honest if my pet is reduced to nothing more then a copy of me and my stats I might as well hang up my ch hat. its not worth the hassles of all these other bugs and have our pets reduced to chum.

So please, DISCUSS this with us before you kill an entire profession.

Thanks

My only question is this:

When you lower pet stats are you also going to lower monster stats.  By this I mean if you tame a peko will it be at least as strong as an adult peko (once it reaches adult status).  Or are you going to make it so that any tamed pet is weaker than the orginal?

My thoughts on this are as such:

I think you need to restrict who can use the higher end pets (like Rancor only for Master, but we all know this)  I think you need to fix the heal loophole.  Consider making PvP only able to use one pet on a battlefield (or maybe even non at all...)  Then decide to alter pet stats.  To often dev teams have a pendulum effect.  Swingng from one extreme to the other.  All I am asking is to see if some changes are enough before making them all.

I dont think they are waiting on us to implement #2, I think its more a matter of taking longer to implement.

Que sera sera...

I dont see this affecting my play style as I never had any uber pets. But I look forward to fewer CH running around.

Yorphiu                                                                                                                                                                              

Novice CH, Novice Pikeman, Novice Ranger                          

Another thought I had was to use the creature managment skill.

Thus a gnort would require only one creature slot to call him.  A Rancor would require three.  Only a Master CH could then call a Rancor and even then it would be their only pet.

I only really have concernes with #2.  I would like to know what you mean by comparable.  Keep in mind that while that big pet with the high resists may look nasty, it dosent get alot of the nasty specials that players get.  Also the way it is setup right now, a CH who uses the right pet for the right encounter has the risk/reward ratio in place.  If I hunt low level things that dont place me in much danger then I get terrible CH xp, but if I go to Dantooine and hunt with my greater sludge panthers I run the risk of dieing if I get aggro while healing them.

All in all this nerf sounds more like PvP balance than PvE balance and I hope you arent going down that road.  Frankly I could care less what Mr. PvP wants.  I really think this needs some hard looking at it,  tune out the PvP whiners (90% or more of the CH nerf threads have been about PvP) and look at what CH's are doing as a whole.

One other thing about this, when you cut the pets stats are you going to reduce their level?  I mean if my panthers at 7000 HAM get cut to 3500 HAM or less will I be able to fight smaller things with them and get more than 1 xp?

Well, its nice to have a heads up, although its disappointing to see that the one issue every CH is agreed upon is not being addressed. Instead of adjusting the Novice CH ability to control extremely powerful pets, you are electing to bring down every pet?

In hunting with other classes, I find that those at my skill level are equal in their ability to hunt big game. Brawlers may die more, for obvious reasons, but they also take in a lot more exp. Marksmen and brawlers have a great deal of control over the enemy they are fighting. Same can be said for bountry hunters.

I think its great that you are adjusting the insta-heal loop. I'm not familiar enough with droids to comment, although I haven't noticed them playing a big role when hunting anywhere aside from the novice planets (on advanced planets they are typically killed off very quickly). But toning down all creatures sounds like an extreme step before handling the Novice CH problem. I hope you look at that before taking step 2.

Holo, hoping you're able to get away from the discussion on the General forum to check in on this thread as well...

My main concern here is with a comment made to the gist of "No single pet will be more powerful than a maxed out combat PC".  Where does this leave Bio-Engineers?  I think its long been believed that BEs, through experimentation,  would have the ability (Once the profession was fixed) to create creatures more powerful than those creature handlers were able to tame.  But if this is now the case thats not going to be possible for them.

If tradeskills weren't so d*mn buggy and players could get their hands on good equipment this wouldn't have been such a problem.

My main pet is a 900 ham camel looking thing, it already takes a beating just using it in regular day to day activity, its going to be worthless after the nerf, and your not even bothering to address the many bugs and problems with the class to begin with.

F*cking whiners got their way.  Why don't you just remove the class and be done with it?

- Pahbi