Architect Archive

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Aglanon wrote:

It seems obvious to me that it is to discourage pet use, at least as it relates to grinding. They seem to want the droid to only be used in situations where you don't care about xp but you do care about safety (theme parks, quests etc.)

This could be ok with me if for three things:

1. As lamgwin pointed out, there was no indicator that there was an xp loss which wasted a lot of my time.

2. If there was anything other than pets in the game that punished you for gaining an advantage (for example there is no punishment for uber weapons during grinding, doctor buffs, chef food, spice and a number of other things that could be perceived as an equal advantage to a level 30 probot).

I think the weapons are balanced out with minimum CL levels and skill tree certs. The reason that non-ch pets and droids are treated differently is that they are available to anyone. Doc buffs and ffood/spices are calculated into the balance equation as well. A combat droid/non-ch petis actually a nice thing to have even at high CLs, so that might account for the XP reduction in their case.

3. You could determine how much damage you wanted the probot to do so as to not just have him kill your enemies for you when you are grinding, that way you could still have your probot out if you are like me and like the starwarsyness of it without having it hog all of the action/xp.

That would actually be kinda cool. It would certainly increase the amount of droids sold to new players.

I don't see why these things are worth so much controversy and flaming.

I agree. This is a simple possible bug investigation, not a big deal at all. It's not like there aren't DE bugs in the game now!

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Lamgwin wrote:

"Ithink the weapons are balanced out with minimum CL levels and skill tree certs."

This theory was already disproven in this thread. Two weapons which have vastly different damage output can require the same certification and skill points. Two FWG-5s can be vastly different, yet there is no penalty for using the superior weapon, even though you clearly have an advantage.

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At the micro scale, I agree with you. One player with a better weapon can getXP fasterthan one with a worse one. On a large scale however (say all the players on a server) it'll balance out. There are only so many uber CDEFs.

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Lamgwin wrote:

jenden, the relative merits of a risk vs. reward line of reasoning are secondary to the question of whether or not risk/reward is the actual reason.

As has been proven, not theorized, in this thread, there is no policy of reduced risk = reduced reward in SWG. Hence, statement about killing things faster is moot. Aside from the fact that the actual utility of droids in that regard has not even been discussed.

Far more important a question to ask is whether or not players are AWARE of the reduction, whether one thinks the reduction is fair or not. Considering the XP reporting displays the same amount of XP regardless of whether or not the probot is in use, and considering that the same amount of XP is not awarded in both cases, it's safe to assume many, if not most, players are unaware of the fact that they did not gain the full amount of XP. I know I wasn't. In fact I disputed aglanon on it privately until he provided evidence.

Not only is the XP reduced, the reduction is not reported to the droid user.

Furthermore, the very reasonableness of the policy is highly suspect, given the wide array of factors already discussed in this thread. It is safe to say that the relative fairness of the practice is questionable at best. The reason behind it remains under debate, with the two most popular theories being that it is to discourage solo play (I don't agree with that one) or that it is to discourage pet use (my choice).

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I said nothing of risk versus rewards, I spoke purely of rate of XP accumulation. I agree that the display not showing the correct amount of xp most definately is a bug, but I'm still not certain that the player loses any aggragate xp from the loss.

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Jenden wrote:

I said nothing of risk versus rewards, I spoke purely of rate of XP accumulation. I agree that the display not showing the correct amount of xp most definately is a bug, but I'm still not certain that the player loses any aggragate xp from the loss.

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Lamgwin wrote:

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Jenden wrote:

I said nothing of risk versus rewards, I spoke purely of rate of XP accumulation. I agree that the display not showing the correct amount of xp most definately is a bug, but I'm still not certain that the player loses any aggragate xp from the loss.

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"Yes, the droid does "steal" some of your xp, but by the same token you should be killing things fast, thereby earning more xp. furthermore, using the droid means you should be safer, reducing the number of trips to the cloner, and increasing your productivity again."

This is the risk reward argument. Specifying an overall aggregate amount of XP remaining level between the two players, one with the probot and one without, is the very essence of the risk/reward argument. The idea that you reduce the reward when you reduce the risk or effort is precisely for the purpose of maintaining an exact amount of experience regardless of the steps taken to increase that experience. As shown throughout this thread, that line of reasoning as a basis for the nerfing of one's experience PER KILL when using a droid is faulty and applicable only to droids.

I simply do not understand what is so hard for all of the droid engineers here to accept. The experience reduction with regard to droids and pets is unique to droids and pets, regardless of whether you word it as based on risk, skill points, time investment, or effort. Whatever terms you wish to apply to it, and many have been applied in this thread, the indisputable fact remains that it applies only for droids/pets. Our product has been singled out for an XP reduction for no adequate reason. At least as far as anyone here has been able to present so far.

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I fail to understand how a net increase in xp gained is a bad thing... If a player can kill faster even at a reduced xp per kill he may be getting more xp overall, which would mean the droid is providing him with a benefit.

• If you are say a Rifleman with a little medic. If you are trying to gain Rifle XP, yet you heal using your medic skills even once, your Rifle XP is drastically reduced and you get medical XP instead.


• If you are a melee / ranged professions, and you switch to either or, your xp is split.


• If you are a Jedi and are trying to level Jedi, if you use any Medic skill, or other Non-Jedi skill, you get practically no Jedi XP at all.


• Creature Handlers split XP between CH xp and other types.

These are just a couple of examples. The reality is that if you use any skill other then one, your XP will be split. The other skill could be maxed, you could have no desire to level it further, it doesn't matter, the XP goes there, you have no choice.

While Droids are not a skill, they are treated like Pets, they have advantages and the drawback of possibly sucking up xp. The key thing to remember is that Droids are designed as Tools, and not as a crutch. You as the owner choose when you want to use it or not.

Here are some examples of when a good combat droid can be very useful.

• You are a low level crafter with no fighting skills. You may need protection or a lair cleared.


• You are a high level character that needs a friend to distract a mob once in a while. You may be able to kill 2 level 80's at once, but not 3. You can use your Droid to pull the agro of one. Losing a little xp on the 3rd is preferable to a trip to the cloner.


• You are a low level character trying to level. The key to remember with this is that a Droid is a tool, and not a crutch. Nothing says that the Droid needs to attack everything you fight, you pick and choose when it attacks. Keep it in reserve until you get in trouble. Have it attack a lair, hence having every creature attack it. Then put it on follow. Then you kill the creatures while they beat on the droid. If the Droid doesn't damage them, you get full xp. You pick and choose when the droid fights. You accept some XP loss here and there to save trips to the cloner. Lastly, as a level 1, in many cases you get more xp splitting a level 30 kill with a droid, then you would getting killing a CL 1 mob alone.

Would I be upset if the XP reduction went away? No. However in the wide picture of the game, it would be unbalancing. A player could Solo their way up to level 30 in no time at all, with no drawbacks. At least when grouping, you need to have other people help you.

Something else to consider is that Buffs, Foods and Spices only enhance you by a percentage. So they help lower levels less then high levels. Weapons and Armor are level restricted, keeping the best stuff out of reach of lower levels. Droids can be used by anybody at all. They need to have some system of checks and balances.

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Lamgwin wrote:

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Jenden wrote:


I fail to understand how a net increase in xp gained is a bad thing... If a player can kill faster even at a reduced xp per kill he may be getting more xp overall, which would mean the droid is providing him with a benefit.

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You presume there is a net increase. This both vastly overestimates the utility of combat droids and vastly underestimates the amount the XP is reduced. It seems to me like a net DECREASE, although some recent numbers in the forum indicate it may be a wash. It is certainly a dramatic decrease when compared with the gains seen by every single other method of risk/effor mitigation available in this game. Again, a point more than adequately presented already in this thread several times.

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I meant that as the reasoning why the droid could still be a benefit. The key to it all is that we need more numbers. Unfortunately I can't get them right now (I've been swamped lately) but once we get a solid idea of the net effect of droids on grouping then we can start discussing the benefits/drawbacks. Using a droid is no different than picking a weapon with higher speed versus damage output (conceptually speaking). They'll both net you the same amount of xp (assuming for now that tests come back showing no real net change in xp) but they each have their own strengths (droid allows you to kill more things in the same amount of time, meaning you get more credits/loot, whereas without the droid you don't have the cost of the droid or the effort of bringing it along).

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Jenden wrote:


I fail to understand how a net increase in xp gained is a bad thing... If a player can kill faster even at a reduced xp per kill he may be getting more xp overall, which would mean the droid is providing him with a benefit.

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For good or bad been working with droids on test center and found a few ways around the lowered xp.

Two people each with a droid can friend their droid to the other person and control the other persons droid. As long they work on seperate mobs with the other persons droid they get full xp.

If your grouped the xp reduction only gets applied to the owner of the droid. So you can take turns using the droid.

The droid can still be used to get medical xp pretty fast by taking the first shot at the mob letting it hit you some while you heal yourself then sending the droid in to kill it.