Development Cycle Archive

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Thunderheart wrote:

I read it. The math breaks down the same.

Droid levels are experience points/skill points. In any situation, there has to be an equitable amount of XP and skill points spent for ability. The ability here is the ability of the droid level. That will equate to a creature level.

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• Droid Handler (new profession) wont make existing DE's happy because they will have to grind through a new profession that they already deserve (and doesn't improve the DE any)


• Everyone should be able to use droids, no matter what the level (which makes them valuable over Creatures)


• Droids should be expendable and destoryable (for the economy)


• Making DE's also DH's (and the only people who can use them) means that they become the new uber class that everyone wants to be (while annoying everyone else)

Personally I see the issue like this: The DE's are a crafting profession, simple as that. Not all Crafting professions can use there wares (such as Weaponsmiths etc) so why bother making DE's the only people who can use high level droids as it will only annoy other professions that cant do the same.

The way I would do it, is allow everyone to use droids, from R5 units to Droidikas (if we ever get them!) regardless of skill level. Obviously, the difference here with CH's is money. Droids are expendable and destoryable, so they should be good, if not better than pets, but still have a limited life, and DE's get repeat business. If people want the good stuff, they will pay for it. And if DE's want to be more combat orientated, then allow them (and only them) the ability to use more than one droid at a time, making the profession both interesting in combat and in crafting.

Answer to the Holiday Gift/Character creation problem

Problem:

As we know players made mass number of characters (that filled up server memory) to get more gifts and to do cross-server trades. Also trying to go by character’s age did not work out as the devs hoped.

Answer-1:

Have the gifts based on number of characters on your account. (Not counting FS characters) You can have anywhere from 1 to10 characters, so if you have only one character it will get the best gift, and if use all ten characters they will ALL get cheap gifts. And character’s age not a factor.

For example using the up-coming holiday Valentine’s Day.

• 1 character = Rose covered Archway with lighted roses


• 2 characters = Rose Bush covered Archway with lighted bases


• 3 characters = Hanging Lighted Rose Bush


• 4 characters = Potted Lighted Rose Bush


• 5 characters = (2) 2 dozen Roses in tall lighted vise


• 6 characters = (2) 1 dozen Roses in lighted vise


• 7 characters = (2) 1 dozen Roses in glass vise


• 8 characters = 1 dozen Roses


• 9 characters = Long Stem Rose


• 10 characters = Long Stem Rose Bud

Side Note: If the devs do go with this I recommend 1st year be red roses, 2nd year white roses, then yellow, and then pink.

Answer-2: "Preferred"

Similar to answer-1 but your account receives 100 gift credits split between all your characters, in-game gift vendors are placed for the holiday for you to spend your credits at. This way if you one character wanted two (1 dozen Roses in lighted vise) and to save the left over gift credits for the next holiday instead of a (Lighted Rose covered Archway) you could do that.

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Disguise Rebel Terminals

With the up-coming crackdown by the empire, the Rebel mission terminals should disguise as broken droids or something.

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Faction Only Bazaars

Bazaars that can only be used by members of that faction, one for Imps near Imps mission terminals and one for Rebel near their mission terminals. This would give non-combat and creaturehunter players a small way to effect the war.

TH, would it be too much to ask for you folks to finish the Top 5 responses for those professions that have STILL not gotten a response?

- J

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picklesSW wrote:
TH, would it be too much to ask for you folks to finish the Top 5 responses for those professions that have STILL not gotten a response?

- J

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Yes it would, your agenda is irrelavent. They will only discuss what they want, period.

VolatileMan

FYI: TH's posts are showed in the Dev Traker again

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Thunderheart wrote:

I read it. The math breaks down the same.

Droid levels are experience points/skill points. In any situation, there has to be an equitable amount of XP and skill points spent for ability. The ability here is the ability of the droid level. That will equate to a creature level.

As far as the droid progressing, its not a bad idea, but it would mean a lot of code and it would mean that either you get zip this time around (which is not an option) or you guys choose one of the existing paths with the hope of having that added somewhere down the lines.

For the droid to progress the even that moved it up a level would have to be skill and experience points spent by the player. With any droid-level-progression, you'd be asking for something brand new which doesnt exist and that means it goes to the end of the development line.

I will bring it up tomorrow though.

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Could you drop a hint when we will see the post about the DROID INVASION, please?

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Ill be doing it this week. I had to push it off until some of internal discussions were finished. The timetable was changed because the Droid Engineers were very clear in telling me they wanted Droid Engineering and Droid Handling as two seperate professions.

Their argument makes a lot of sense too. A good balance is akin to Bio-Engineers and Creature Handlers; BE's make em and CH's use them. Its really two different playstyles. One is crafting and one is combat/exploration. Adding a class of combat droids to the game has to be similar. Combat droids themselves have to stay level 10 or under for the general population otherwise everyone would rush out and get the better pets. That leaves a wide range of powerful combat droids that needs to be in the game, but to get those droids, players have to spend the time and energy to earn them.

So what we'll have is a Droid Engineer profession and a Droid Handling profession. All players will have access to combat droids up to level 10 and DH's will get a wide range of heavy combat droids to handle.

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So the fundamental thing with the devs is that we have to pay with skill points to use droids.

Do you really thing we should have to do that? Aren't droids programmed to follow orders. Unlike pets who have wild tendecies, who may eat you if you don't feed it, droid don't have that. They do what you program them to do and only that. So why should I have to learn to use them when they are program them to do what I say. We should really be talking about before any cert system is discussed, because this is where I feel the devs and the community differs.

Re: Droid Invasion

I understand that the droids you are probosing may be powerful combat droids, or they may not be, we will not know til they are in game or we get some stats. But I do not understand why you are compating them to Creature Handler Pets. They are not pets, they are droids. Programable machines.

Creature Handler pets are living beings with personallities and manerisms that have to be dealt with by a trained Creature Handler (hense the Profession). Droids are machines that are programable (by a Droid Engineer) to act the way they program them, Obey who they program them to obey, ect......

To say that you need to spend SP or XP to be able to control a droid just doesn't make sese to me. If you want to make them profession specific fine (ie: Combat droid certs for combat professions, Surveying droid certs for crafting professions, ect....) and make the higher level droids only available to the Masters of those professions. But they should be the same droids available to all at certain levels (ie: Master Rifleman gets the same certs as a Master Carbineer), You can even give the Hybrid Classes specific droids (ie: Smuggler Droids, Bounty Hunter Droids, Combat Medic Droids). But not a seperate profession that is just absurd. This will bring about the same problems we had before the Creature Handler rebalancing last publish. All the bandwagon jumpers will flock to this profession and it will be R-o-b-o-P-o-k-e-m-o-n.

You also said something about Faction Pets. I am all for Making Faction pets dependent on Rank, but that should be all. I hope you are not thinking along the same lines and want to make us have to spend SP and XP to be able to control Faction Pets too. To me Faction Pets and Droids are much more similar than Droids and Creature Handler Pets.

Faction Pets - Soldiers who follow orders of thier superiors.

Droids - Machines who follow orders of who they are programed (by DE) to follow orders from.

CH Pets - Living beings with thier own personality and manerisms that need to be trained and controlled by someone who has the necessary skills and abilities to do so.

I also feel that if you want to really limit them and the amount that people can have and use they should take alot of resources and different types to make the higher the level ones. This will make them very expensive not only for the Droid Engineer to build but for the consumer to buy. Hopefully this will limit the amount players will be able to buy and Droid Engineers will be able to make.

I think Combat and other types of droids would be a great addition to the game, but if only a new profession (Droid Handler) or Droid Engineers are going to be the only ones able to use the high level ones I would rather not see them at all. I think it will just be a problem waiting to be NERFED.

If we must pick the lesser of three evils, Put the Droid Handling Certifications in the DE profession. 63 skill points spent to Master Along with the 77 points you probably spent in Master Artisan is plenty. It will allow
the DE's who have been very patient and have put up with alot of neglect to participate in Combat or remain as carfters.
If you think 29 points with Engineer is not enough skill points for play balance make Droid engineer require Master Artisan. Thats 77 points with 63 a good chunk of skill points and definetly not dabbling. Spread the attainment of Droid CL levels thru out the skill tree like CH so there is no one combat branch. If the requirement is just one column in Droid Engineer for the handler features and just requires the Engineering column in Artisan, it will only be a 49 skill point expense. If you require Master Artisan and spread out the CL levels like CH it will require 140 skill points which is plenty and a committment.

If someone already has points spent in the DE skill tree and they don't have Master Artisan allow them to retain there position but to progress no further until the Master Artisan requirement is met. If they are allready Master Droid Engineers do not give them the certifications until the Master Artisan requirement is met. All non DE's will be at level 10 Droid usage. This has got to be the most economical coding way and the fairest way to the DE's to implement this new feature.
Only Changes to the Master Artisan box and the DE skill tree as compared to trying to place certifications though out all the combat professions. There is no way just to Handle a combat droid should require 63 skill points, and there is no way a Droid Enigneer should NOT be able to use what they can build.
Also I don't really see the argument about getting a Droid equates with getting an additional Combat Charactor. Isn't that the point of getting one ? Or should we just gring away to get another nerf decoration to drag around with us ? Come on, we want another charactor in combat so we can solo things we couldn't alone. Thats the idea. People grind thru combat trees in a week anyway as it stands now. SO WHAT !!!! Your subscriber base is there let them have fun. Most noobs are there for a month and disappear anyway. Take care of your base first.

We will see, but when I see comments about restricting progress or too powerful or too easy it is very dissapointing. The game is supposed to be fun not an exercise in prevention of success. Wake up Devs. The quality of the product is paramount. If you make a fun game people will come. Failure is not fun. When you worry about restricting people from succeeding so they hang on to a subsciption longer you will lose them anyway because you have dome nothing but create a tedious grind.
Once people master a skill of there chosing they really get to start playing the game. You roleplay the charactor type you have chosen. Everyone tries to get thru to the Master level as soon as possible because anything less in whatever profession is total BS. If you are a crafter whatever you make is so pedestrian no one wants it. So you grind thru to the top to have a chance of creating a product someone will buy. If your server gets blessed with the right resources.
If you are a combat profession you really can't do anything until you reach the secound tier of an advanced skill tree before you are talking unless you Master the entire first level i.e. Master Brawler, Master Marksman. But even then you are in the middle of it. There is no middle ground is the point. It's Krayt Dragons or Keedles.
Just because people get to the top it doesn't drive them away from the game. I know several poeple who have two and three accounts because they like playing the different aspects of the game. ROLEPLAYING not grinding. It just seems sometimes that the developers are more concerned with the stick and not the carrot.

Zonk

those are kickass ideas subutai... thats exactly what droids should be doing in this game. not tanking. assisting.