Aithos, post: 3938, member: 1146 wrote:

Suggestion: Reintroduce SWG-style pet special attacks, add tactical formations, and allow dyeing of Creature Handler tamed pets to restore CH viability, identity, and meaningful gameplay depth.

IMO Creature Handler has always felt, frankly, lackluster with no depth or progression (and I know I’ve sounded like a broken record since joining). Pretty sure it's one of the major reasons why no one plays Creature Handler. ( minus myself....) I’d love to see formations, pet special attacks, and the ability to dye tamed creatures added for CHs.

As it stands, **CH-tamed creatures don’t compete with BE pets....**even a 40-point BE pet will reliably win a 3v1 every time. In PvE, CH pet DPS simply isn’t worth the point investment. The risk, cost, and management of CH pets are still not very rewarding.

Reintroducing creature special attacks, modeled after Pre-CU SWG, would add meaningful depth and allow CH pets to contribute through control, debuffs, and synergy, not raw damage. This would open up tactical combinations with combat professions and make the skill line far more rewarding to play.

Control / State Effects

• Area Combo – AoE dizzy, stun, intimidation, blindness
• Blinding Strike – Single-target blind
• Crippling Strike – Single-target posture down
• Dizzy Strike – Single-target dizzy
• Force Strike – AoE dizzy + knockdown attempt
• Intimidation – Single-target intimidate
• Knockdown – Single-target knockdown

Damage / AoE

• Area Attack – AoE normal damage
• Open Wounds – AoE 5× normal damage + 150-tick bleed (20m), stackable

Disease (HA-based)

• Mild / Medium / Strong Disease – 1 / 2 / 3 dmg per 40s tick
• Plague Strike – AoE disease, 150 dmg, random HAM pools, 8-minute duration

Poison (HA-based, stackable by origin)

• Mild / Medium / Strong Poison – 60 / 90 / 110 dmg per 20s tick (2 min)
• Poison Spray – AoE poison, 100 dmg per 20s tick (2 min)

This approach keeps CH pets distinct from BE pets, emphasizes battlefield control over raw DPS, and restores the unique identity Creature Handler once had in SWG.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and well thought out suggestion. I really appreciate the passion behind it, and I agree that Creature Handler has historically struggled with identity, depth, and long term viability compared to other systems like Bio-Engineer pets.

Reintroducing SWG-style pet special attacks and tactical depth, especially inspired by Pre-CU mechanics, is an interesting approach. Shifting CH pets toward control, debuffs, and group synergy rather than raw damage would help clearly differentiate them from BE pets and could make the profession far more rewarding to invest in. The examples you provided around control states, disease, and poison effects do a great job of illustrating how this could add meaningful gameplay without simply inflating DPS.

Formations and cosmetic customization like dyeing tamed creatures are also great ideas that would help reinforce Creature Handler’s unique identity and give players more ways to express progression and ownership over their pets.

This is a larger systemic suggestion, but it’s absolutely worth discussion. We’ll pass this along to development so they can review it as a whole and evaluate what might be feasible within our current design goals and resources.

Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback and for continuing to advocate for the profession.

Orton
Evolve Community Manager

Aithos, post: 3959, member: 1146 wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

I understand this would be a significant amount of work, and I’ve only recently started digging into the QT Source myself: https://bitbucket.org/stellabellumswg/swg-main/src/master/. Since this uses its own launcher, I’m not sure how you currently have things configured, but if you end up needing any reverse engineering or pathing work, I may be able to help if it becomes an action item.

I’m also aware that CH isn’t widely played and that the server population is relatively small, so I’m not expecting any miracles. CH has historically been broken or ineffective.....even back on Live.....so getting it to a workable state on this platform would likely require substantial coding and testing to find the right balance.

....also lets add in some more tamable creatures + more mounting options while we are at it!

[URL unfurl="true"]https://swgcreatures.info/detail.asp?creatureID=761[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://swgcreatures.info/detail.asp?creatureID=464[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://swgcreatures.info/detail.asp?creatureID=823[/URL]

We encourage everyone to check out Test Center. Numerous updates have been made to Creature Handler, and we’re excited to get more eyes and hands on the changes.

The faster these systems are tested, the faster we can move them over to the live server. Please share any feedback you have after trying them out.

We hope you enjoy the update!

Orton
Evolve Community Manager

Historical reactions: Love × 1

orton, post: 4142, member: 2006 wrote:

We encourage everyone to check out Test Center. Numerous updates have been made to Creature Handler, and we’re excited to get more eyes and hands on the changes.

The faster these systems are tested, the faster we can move them over to the live server. Please share any feedback you have after trying them out.

We hope you enjoy the update!

Orton
Evolve Community Manager

ive tryed it out, kind of nice set up, Only things i am wondering are you able to gain levels on your creatures,
i went to make a Peko Peko mount, you cant make one into a mount.

Steinlager, post: 4220, member: 2734 wrote:

ive tryed it out, kind of nice set up, Only things i am wondering are you able to gain levels on your creatures,
i went to make a Peko Peko mount, you cant make one into a mount.

Creatures gain levels based on YOUR combat level. If it doesnt give you XP, it wont give the creature XP. They just need to be grouped with you and they do not need to attack higher level npcs until they can survive.

Rezec, post: 4221, member: 1 wrote:

Creatures gain levels based on YOUR combat level. If it doesnt give you XP, it wont give the creature XP. They just need to be grouped with you and they do not need to attack higher level npcs until they can survive.

I am attacking hogher levels, Im talking about on test center, or is there an other place to dicuss this topic

Yes, this is how creatures gain XP and levels on TC, when you kill npcs at your level. Level 90.

Aithos, post: 3938, member: 1146 wrote:

Suggestion: Reintroduce SWG-style pet special attacks, add tactical formations, and allow dyeing of Creature Handler tamed pets to restore CH viability, identity, and meaningful gameplay depth.

IMO Creature Handler has always felt, frankly, lackluster with no depth or progression (and I know I’ve sounded like a broken record since joining). Pretty sure it's one of the major reasons why no one plays Creature Handler. ( minus myself....) I’d love to see formations, pet special attacks, and the ability to dye tamed creatures added for CHs.

As it stands, **CH-tamed creatures don’t compete with BE pets....**even a 40-point BE pet will reliably win a 3v1 every time. In PvE, CH pet DPS simply isn’t worth the point investment. The risk, cost, and management of CH pets are still not very rewarding.

Reintroducing creature special attacks, modeled after Pre-CU SWG, would add meaningful depth and allow CH pets to contribute through control, debuffs, and synergy, not raw damage. This would open up tactical combinations with combat professions and make the skill line far more rewarding to play.

Control / State Effects

• Area Combo – AoE dizzy, stun, intimidation, blindness
• Blinding Strike – Single-target blind
• Crippling Strike – Single-target posture down
• Dizzy Strike – Single-target dizzy
• Force Strike – AoE dizzy + knockdown attempt
• Intimidation – Single-target intimidate
• Knockdown – Single-target knockdown

Damage / AoE

• Area Attack – AoE normal damage
• Open Wounds – AoE 5× normal damage + 150-tick bleed (20m), stackable

Disease (HA-based)

• Mild / Medium / Strong Disease – 1 / 2 / 3 dmg per 40s tick
• Plague Strike – AoE disease, 150 dmg, random HAM pools, 8-minute duration

Poison (HA-based, stackable by origin)

• Mild / Medium / Strong Poison – 60 / 90 / 110 dmg per 20s tick (2 min)
• Poison Spray – AoE poison, 100 dmg per 20s tick (2 min)

This approach keeps CH pets distinct from BE pets, emphasizes battlefield control over raw DPS, and restores the unique identity Creature Handler once had in SWG.

Check out the updates in Chapter 6 to creature handler.

Orton
Evolve Community Manager