Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Probot vs Non-CH Pet
As I eluded to earlier, it may just be that droids are intended to replace pets... or atleast take the leading role for non-ch...
Like I said, this isn't so much about the fact droids besting pets. Its about hypocritical balancing. Droids and non-ch pets are in the exact same market, while people can own both sometimes they'll think.. why bother. I have a vehicle so I don't need a mount, I have a droid so I don't need a combat pet. This issue works on several levels and I'm just trying to represent all angles here. Me personally, I don't care less that a droid is a better fighter than a non-ch pet however there will be and is a significant number of people who dislike that because it's taking something from our profession and giving it to someone else. Me personally I'd prefer a balance between the benefits so both are desirable.
Frankly if it was left up to me droids would have functionality while pets would have power. A probot would be reasonable in a fight but would struggle against another CL10 pet, the benefit is that when assisting a player it can fire at long range thus being totally ignored by the mob, a pet however needs to be in melee range and thus it'll suffer damage. A droid also has crafting abilities and support for skills, a pet does not. Now that for me is balanced even though in terms of raw numbers the droid is weaker.
Tal-N wrote:
Its not the issue of being forced out of the market, it's the fact we know that the devs don't want players to have pets which are too powerful. They moaned about the old rockbeetles with thier light armor and 3500 of HAM, this was such a concern they remade the entire system. Now it seems that they'll need to revise the droids as well or else you can bet I'll be kicking up a stink along with others about how they can justify one and not the other.
But Tal, the rock beetles then had AR1. even a 4k ham HAM CL10 pet with noAR pales in comparison to what the stats of the rock beetles had then.
Typically in these 4-5, even 6k ham pets is that their damage is really crap, so is their courage, speed and to hit. resists are only kept to kinetic. With no dispute, i too believe that perhaps even a 6k Health pet is overboard but to say that the standard is 3k/2k/1k is pretty hard to nail down given that our profession gives us the power to add more and give less in each area (which makes our class so interesting and creative).
Truth is, im not so sure what they did then applies anymore. The game has evolved. Look at doctor buffs and chef foods today. they can make a person almost godlike to the point there is no real need for pets. The power output which players can pay out can drive any non ch pet into the ground in a heartbeat. Look at composite armor, they get kinetic defenses up to 80% or more. anyone can strap on a suit and go tank creatures to level. PvE levelling is a Joke and we all know it. Of course there is the higher end content like nightsisters. that changes things a bit but im sure you wont be pulling a non ch pet for content like that. thats just asking for vit loss.
What i do think they need to do is up the power of the CH creatures. give back medium armor or, at least allow pets to do full damage instead of reduced damage when they get dealt the full wack. The CH market has been severly castrated all because a whole bunch of "know it alls" decided that creatures just wasnt Star Wars or that it was the only reason causing lag. Im sorry man, but there is also alot of things not very Star Wars about this game besides creatures but we dont see those being addressed. I find it even more funny when i see someone bitching to a CH to put away his pet because hes causing lag when its peak hour in coronet, tons of ppl, speeders and droidseverywhere. The irony is sad.
If they up the power of the CH creatures, it will justify the 4-5k Ham CL10 pets and can at least stand toe to toe with a non ch combat droid. Im not saying droids should be nerfed. they should be good and im not saying that DE's will steal our market but ultimately together both DEs and BEs can give non ch players the best of both worlds to choose from in their daily game play.
To be honest, im just about sick and tired of the way the developers have gone about dicking everyone about. I cant believe people actually get away with this kind of crap. At least say something. At least say what is acceptable so we arent left to ASS-U-ME what is ok and whats not. It really makes us all look d-a-m-n stupid. Look at us. bickering at each other and all for nothing because none of us has any clue what is on the devs minds because the devshave no idea themselves.
For me i specialise in pets and nothing else. Im not afraid of the DE improvements, in fact i welcome them. I just want our own god d-a-m-n issues worked out to give us a fair chance. And if not, even if i have to replace/refund every pet ive made to dateso be it. I want to see just how long more they can just keep improving and screwing over each class before people start to realise that they are wasting their time and money chasing what they think could be their turn for dev love or the illusion of what the game "could" be.
Sure ban me. i dont care anymore. for now, im going to keep making my pets. If they become invalid, then, theres just alot of customers to attend to.
Tal, i dont intend the frustrations to you btw, just to the game in general really. Its been some mths into this game now and the pattern is still the same, same old bugs returning etc. the only difference is new gimmicks. Nancy does have some very valid points too. looks like we've got a one star lurker in the threads too by the look of it.
*long sigh*
/end rant
Tal-N wrote:
As I eluded to earlier, it may just be that droids are intended to replace pets... or atleast take the leading role for non-ch...
Like I said, this isn't so much about the fact droids besting pets. Its about hypocritical balancing. Droids and non-ch pets are in the exact same market, while people can own both sometimes they'll think.. why bother. I have a vehicle so I don't need a mount, I have a droid so I don't need a combat pet. This issue works on several levels and I'm just trying to represent all angles here. Me personally, I don't care less that a droid is a better fighter than a non-ch pet however there will be and is a significant number of people who dislike that because it's taking something from our profession and giving it to someone else. Me personally I'd prefer a balance between the benefits so both are desirable.
Frankly if it was left up to me droids would have functionality while pets would have power. A probot would be reasonable in a fight but would struggle against another CL10 pet, the benefit is that when assisting a player it can fire at long range thus being totally ignored by the mob, a pet however needs to be in melee range and thus it'll suffer damage. A droid also has crafting abilities and support for skills, a pet does not. Now that for me is balanced even though in terms of raw numbers the droid is weaker.
Hypocritical? By the strict definition of the word yes... but I dont know if all things are suppose to be equal in this game...
Lets face it, that numb nuts TH keeps making "poke" references when it comes to CH... Some of the things TH has said about CH has clearly shown his lack of knowledge and contempt for the CH profession...
I think what we are seeing here is an effort to shift the focus from "poke" pets to droids.
As far as the vehicle/mount analogy I disagree with that example. You can only ride one vehicle/pet at a time and there would never be a reason to have both out.
With a droid and pet that would be a different situation completely. I think playerswould use pets so long as they provide some use...
Now I would concede that if the devs nerf the hell outa pets and put some insanely low cap on the ham/res then I could see how a player would say, "why bother, it's just going to get incap the second I send it in".
The more I think about it the more I think droids should hold an advantage over, as Nancy put it, "flesh and bone".
I guess the trick is to make it so that the droids dont completely over shadow pets to such a degree that the player base feel they are not worth the money/time to pull out...
If they do decide to over shadow pets it still wouldnt be the end of the world for BEs or CHs... The only real change would be the CL10 market would shift to the DEs... and dont they kinda deserve it? I mean what market do they have now??? Pretty much none.
Us BE still have the chef, CH, and taylor market... CH could care less if some newbie isnt using "one of their tools" and if anything would make CH more disinctive.
Personally I'm not too concerned about any of the upcoming changes... What has me the most concerned as a BE is the insane shortage of meat 
Something needs to be done there... Meat harvestors/farms or higher harvest rates for scouts/rangers.... There a whole market that I cant fully take advantage of because there is no way in hell I can consistantly have stacks of 25k, 50k, 100k of meat.
Since we are on the droid subject why not make disposable hunting droids? Sorta like the bounty droids... One use and thats it... brings back a load of meat and dies... I dunno 
Vezek
NancyJ wrote:
It wasnt me that called them flash and bone that was someone else.
The devs have said that cl 10 droids should be equal to CL 10 pets - its in the patch notes.
If they dont want us to make CL 10 pets they should just come out and say it. Or stop us having the ability to do so instead of saying our pets are overpowered and need to be nerfed again.
I'm not saying there arent still bugs in the system that allow us to create pets far greater than we should be able to - eg Tiskrans 10k/5k/4k 60% kinetic resist and over 100 damage - the way the system works there has to have been a bug in there for that to happen, and I have no problem with that being fixed. - if something like that got into the public we'd all be up sh!t creek, however most of us realise that something like that isnt supposed to be and will just keep it as a trophy.
I would like to correct myself, Nyema made that "flesh and bone" comment not Nacy. Two names that start with"N"after not getting any sleep in 2 daysstarts to look thesame hehe
Sorry about that.
Anyways,if the Devs have indeed stated that pets and droids of the same CL are supposeto beequal then they have a serious problem on their hands it would seem.
Nancy, do you have a linkto such a commentthat the devs made? I would be interested in seeing it so I could use it for argumentive purposes on the devs forums
NancyJ wrote:
Its in the patch notes for all to read but I'll repeat them here for the lazy people
Test Center Update Notes
*** Major Publish 7 Features ***
Droid & Droid Engineer Enhancements
Droid Damage Repair Kits and Droid Wound Repair Kit
Droid Battery consumption rate halved (enabling them to last twice as long)
Droids will no longer be susceptible to poisons, bleeds, /warcry or /intimidate
Combat Droids will have all the fighting functionality of a regular combat-capable creature (CL10)
These options will function like creature pets.
All players will have the ability to own and operate these combat droids.
A combat droid is a droid that is capable of attacking things, in addition to other potential droid capabilities that can be added to droids currently.
The normal crafting process is used, and a combat module is included in the droid.
Combat module will only mount in droids capable of combat. They can be placed in one of the general droid module slots that already exist on the droid chassis', seen during the crafting of the droid.
Combat module is crafted in exactly the same fashion as other droid modules, using a draft schematic, resource ingredients, and previously crafted component ingredients.
Combat modules can be crafted at varying quality levels, which can be seen when the module is examined.
Combat modules stack and if more than one of them is placed in a single droid, they have a cumulative effect.
To have the strongest combat droid, six 100% combat modules must be used in constructing a droid.
First off I would like to thank Nancy on behalf of all the fellow lazy BEs out there for posting the above patch notes
However, the statement of:
"Combat Droids will have all the fighting functionality of a regular combat-capable creature (CL10)"
Says functionality and not performance.... You can interpret that as the ability to heal droids and increased battery life.
Wouldnt we all agree the droids, as is, have virtually no practical combat functionality due to the above?
I think one could say that a Chevy S10 has the same driving functionality as a Chevy Corvette as both vehicles certainaly will get you from point a to point b on any paved road in America... Their performance may differ but not their functionality....
Just my two cents
Dont get me wrong though, I do agree with you 100% that the Devs need to make up their damn minds... not only with non-ch pets but also with reg ch pets.
Either give CL10 pets a place or do away with em.. either give CH a place or do away with them... However, draging things out in a prolonged, "nerf it till no one wants to play it" is a COWARD'S way out.
It is a known fact that the devs do not have documentation to what they are doing. They could have 2 devs doing something completely different. It seems to me that if they are going to put max spec's on a CL 10 pets, it should apply to all. How do you heal a droid? if they are harder to heal, that would be good reason to have more damage reserve.... Also, pets do not have to compete with droids since they will be along side... What is the problem?
I've still not seen anything official about being able to call droid and pet at the same time. JUst because its on test does not mean that its going to go live or is even intended to do so - the current experimentation changes have been on test before but they were never documented and never made it live, it was just something they were testing the water with.
If it does go live the issue still exists, what we're against is the nerfs to our non-ch pets, telling us they're 'overpowered' still, meaning any we may have sold so far will be nerfed again in the next patch, the purpose of this experiment was to show that our pets arent overpowered and dont need nerfing.
I'm not bothered about DE getting our piece of the non-ch pie, I dont make CL 10 pets, because they're always going to get nerfed every patch.
This is why I care - I want to be able to say 'yes' when a customer asks for a nice non-ch pet.
Customer Service is my #1 priority in game, I take pride in providing a pleasant shopping experience and I will always refund or replace any item that I've sold if a customer has a problem with it.
I'd rather quit than replace all the CL 10 pets I made before Talthazar told us the devs are nerfing us again.
The devs have said that cl 10 droids should be equal to CL 10 pets - its in the patch notes.
If they dont want us to make CL 10 pets they should just come out and say it. Or stop us having the ability to do so instead of saying our pets are overpowered and need to be nerfed again.
I'm not saying there arent still bugs in the system that allow us to create pets far greater than we should be able to - eg Tiskrans 10k/5k/4k 60% kinetic resist and over 100 damage - the way the system works there has to have been a bug in there for that to happen, and I have no problem with that being fixed. - if something like that got into the public we'd all be up sh!t creek, however most of us realise that something like that isnt supposed to be and will just keep it as a trophy.
Just wanted to let you BE's know that in Patch 7, Droid armor is being Nerfed to AR0 40% max.
This isnt a flame, or accusation, or anything of that nature.
Just an FYI.
Message Edited by Lonkley on 03-09-2004 05:08 PM
Lonkley wrote:
Just wanted to let you BE's know that in Patch 7, Droid armor is being Nerfed to AR0 40% max.
This isnt a flame, or accusation, or anything of that nature.
Just an FYI.
Message Edited by Lonkley on 03-09-2004 05:08 PM
Actually, this is wrong. It is AR0 with 20% max resists. Here is what you can expect a lvl 10 pet to be shortly:
HAM 300-2000
DAM 50 low end 120 top end
3% to 20% resists
I would guess no special attacks either