Development Cycle Archive

Besides the obvious beasts of burden you saw in Tatooine in the streets, I noted mounts everywhere (even flying ones on the cloner water world), combat pets (notably in the big execution scene), and just general creatures galore.

Well, speaking as a 2-2-4-4 CH, no, the profession is not genre.

We see creatures used as beasts of burden and mounts in the films. They are only used in combat in throw-him-to-the-orangapoid scenes (five quatloos to anyone who gets the reference :-). Not one character in five movies uses creatures as a weapon as they are used in SWG. Pets are fun, but they're not really justifiable in this setting. They're only here because the designers have a thing for them.

And yes, I'm sure Lucas' people signed off on the idea, but I'm equally sure they didn't realise that would mean half a dozen people with Rancors in front of every starport.

STOP RE-DEVELOPING THE GAME AND FIX THE ONE THAT YOU GAVE US


I could really care less about any of these changes, because if my pets dont start following me when I tell them to, if they continue to get stuck on server boundries, or to follow me at a snails pace... then no "rebalancing" in the world will matter because you will lose me as a customer.

Fix the god damned game first.

STOP RE-DEVELOPING THE GAME AND FIX THE ONE THAT YOU GAVE US

I'd like to echo that as well.

I would like the rules to stop changing so I can figure out what I want my characters to be, and then make them be that. Fixing balance issues is one thing. Radically altering the balance of power is quite another.

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Williben wrote:

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Mixie wrote:

Williben, you misunderstood TH. Probots are not bing reduced to CL 10, they're being raised to CL10.

You and Thunderheart are arguing the same point: currently a probot will get destroyed by a non-CH pet. The purpose of this change is to make the two equal.

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Guess I have to wait to see the final outcome. But as of now, they are highewr than CL 10, they are Cl 16 if I remember my nuts and bolts. Its hard for me to understand how going from CL 16 to CL 10 makes it raised to CL 10. Maybe they are increasing the HAM above 810.

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What are you basing their being CL 16 from? Is it from comparing their HAM and damage output to that of a CL 16 creature or are you going by what it says when you examine the droid (or the droid's deed, or where-ever it is you DE's can see that)?

If you're getting the CL 16 from examination instead of by comparison, then you're forgetting that TH said in his latest post to the DE forums that the CL 16 doesn't refer to combat abilities alone. It refers to the entire package of abilities. So, if you add a crafting station module to the droid, then the CL is going to go up, but the droid isn't any stronger. Add in a medical module and the CL goes up again, but still the combat abilities haven't changed. A droid'd CL isn't the same as a creature's CL, because a droid's takes into account non-combat modules. I mean, a Wrix is a CL15 pet, and they have a HAM of about 1500, and they do far more damage than Probots do. So a Probot that shows up as CL 16 is quite obviously inferior to the Wrix, which means that the Probot's Combat-CL is less than 15.

I think I explained that in so many ways that I actually made it more confusing lol

The CL on a probot was never dropped when it was "fixed" from the 3200-something HAM and 120 or so Damage to the 820 HAM 50 damage they are today. So basically the CL on a probot means nothing.

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duncje wrote:
The CL on a probot was never dropped when it was "fixed" from the 3200-something HAM and 120 or so Damage to the 820 HAM 50 damage they are today. So basically the CL on a probot means nothing.

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Exactly.

Here's the thread I was talking about:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=43428&page=1

I tried to quote the exact part I wanted but the boards threw me insane-o errors! But the part you should read is the very last question in the first post (#5).

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Nailliar wrote:
What Williben is referring to is the current rating of a Probot today on Live is CL 16. Of course that Might be lefter over from Pre-Nerf days, but since no one has adequately answered that from SoE's side it's only conjecture.

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Yes, part of this confusion is from earlier iterations of the probot. Theycan display CL 16 in a bunch of cases, but they are actually (internally) around a level 6 pet. When we did the Creature Balance, we brought them up to a Creature Level of 10 so they would be as valuable and as useful as other pets.

yep TH a case nerf quick and forget to adjust the other numbers, so currenly id estimate them at 7-8 or so the cl6 pets cant handle a med armor(40%) probot. with patch to cl10 dmg 70-80 same HAM so probotwill be the most powerful non-ch/non-faction pet. of course without a in battle repair system...hehe thats another issue...

TH, we all know the CL system is borked. The devs have stated this. So please from now on, when refering to pets and what we should expect, could you speak in plain language we all can understand? In otherwords HAM, armor and damage?

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virtualman1 wrote:
hey TH I know this is off topic but I've just been wondering... why were they called probots???? in the movies they were called imperial probe droids not probots... I'm just curious, its nothing game breaking or anything like that.

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Actually our BH droids are called Imperial Probe Droids if I'm not mistaken, so they are out there

I think they are just using Probot as a general name for the people out there (easier and quicker to say and type Isuppose)

Can't ever resist an opportunity to provide a touchstone to Star Wars continuity.

"Probe droids, or probots, are designed to perform reconnaissance missions, gathering data and transmitting it back to their masters."

A Guide to the Star Wars Universe (2nd Ed.)

Btw, these droids are designed to be exceedingly durable (i.e. high armor and HAM), but only the military version is outfitted with weapons. I'm sure the argument will rage on about how Probots should be able to do the damage of a Level 15 pet. . . far be it for me to suggest that Star Wars have anything to do with SWG.

Tam Darkfell (Intrepid) / Vendt Darkfell (T/C)

Another quick note. . .

The Kenner Toy featuring the droid was the "Turret & Probot Playset." Not sure if that was the first time the abbreviated name was used, but I'm sure its an instance many of us were exposed to. (For my part, my playset is still set up on the table downstairs with Han poised to fire.)

Thank you for the Clarification TH, one point to add/change, they still uniformly say CL 16 on livewhich leads to the current confusion about the relative strength of adv. Probots.