Droid Engineer Archive

a hypothesis i posted on the droid invasion thread which seems to have been largely overlooked

If one branch of the droid engineer was given over to handling droids, this would create the following situation:

1 - droid engineers would find it very easy to learn to use their creations (and necessary to master their profession)
2 - the pure combat professions would find it MUCH harder to have high level droids than artisans because:

(i) all artisans have paid the 15 skill points for novice artisan and
(ii) all of the surveying+harvesting artisans (weaponsmiths, armoursmiths and droid engineers - ie the guys getting their tails kicked every time they try to grab their resources) will have to already have the entire engineering branch of artisan for their own professions so paying the extra sp for novice droid engineer to get on the handling branch would be much less of a problem.

This leads to a situation that can be regulated and tested by the devs - that of making the combat professions able to take uber droids but at the cost of their secondary combat skills (like bounty hunters taking pistoleer skills to get max speed or a lvl25 droid but not enough sp to master both) and also allowing artisans access to the uber droids with much less sp investment (also giving the droid engineers a little handling boost for getting master will be cool - maybe allow for multiple droids like ch get with creatures which will allow us to use a utility droid as well as our combat one =) ). It doesn't stop the ability of everyone (inc n00berz) to use lvl 10 combat droids and utility droids either.

As far as i can tell this is the best and only way to balance having high level combat droids in the game without the pointless droid handler profession (like would the devs have created a taming branch of the tree for droids LOL) and not totally unbalancing the combat professions forcing nerfs on them and making it necessary for everyone to have the droids to survive as opposed to owning one being an option.

I also don't see this as a threat to the pure crafters as handling xp doesn't necassarily have to be through combat if utility droids also gave it - for instance when using med skills around a droid with a med component or crafting next to a droid crafting station.

I would appreciate any feedback you guys might have.

Something like this has been proposed numerous times in many different variations. Posting here were the pure crafters have a strangle hold on things is a waste of time. Suggest you submit your ideas directly to the DEV's (Thunderheart, Runesabre, and JustG) by private message. If enough they receive enough PM's they might change their minds about following the pure crafting direction. Just like enough PM's got the Droid Handler profession cancelled dispite the pushing for it the pure crafters were doing.

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
...like enough PM's got the Droid Handler profession cancelled dispite the pushing for it the pure crafters were doing.

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Just to be clear, the majority of 'pure crafters' did not ask for a Droid Handler profession. This was stated by Thunderheart but most DEs of the time feel it wasn't a true statement.

It most likely resulted from a misunderstanding in which the majority of 'pure crafters' were asking that there not be any DE only combat droids because they didn't want to be turned into a version of Creature Handlers. However, those DEs did not as a rulewant a Droid Handler class. Rather they wanted their droids usable by everyone.

Hey Starn00b, now you're trying to blame Droid Handler on this mysterious "pure crafter" cult of yours? What's next, Kennedy's assassination?

Buy a clue.

Don't listen to ArdenStarmariner:

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GarVa wrote:

As the others stated, it was not a private message campaign that got the change, please continue to use this forum and work with the correspondent.

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http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=66424

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overbyte wrote:
a hypothesis i posted on the droid invasion thread which seems to have been largely overlooked

If one branch of the droid engineer was given over to handling droids, this would create the following situation:

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I see two major problems:

1) Too many of the people who can use droidswould also beable to make them. Sure it would be possible to have only the handling branch, but once you have gone that far...

2) Too few skillpoints are required for droids to be much good. DE does not require MA (at least if you aren't trying to actually make droids), so the total skillpoints for the best droids (perhaps short of Master DE) would belittle morethan those required foreven NoviceCH. One of the ways CH got nerfed was spreading the call levels into multiple trees to increase the skillpoint requirement for dabblers. The same mistake won't get made again.

It is far better that the call level skill for droids be spread into the other Artisan based eliteprofessions as well. Possibly only in 4th level boxes and Master. That solves both problems.

Plenty of (rich) customers for combat droids who can't make their own.

The highest droids would require even more skillpoints than CH which would allow for truely powerful droids on the top end.

How do you invision the droids being split amongst the trees? Would the upper level combat droids be split amongst the elite artisans or the elite combat guys?

i don't think that putting certs in the master de box is a good choice for the de branch idea because ppl will want it but you don't want to force them to get your entire profession (thus making you obsolete) before they can get it - i say make master de have multiple droids instead because it IS a definate advantage but doesn't force everyone who likes to use droids to grind out a craft prof.

the only problem i have with distributing certs throughout all profs is that it means ppl have to grind out a profession to get the droid that they want because in order to keep combat balance the combat types need to have the lesser droids while the artisans walk around with the destroyer droidekas.

IMO the de prof is potentially the coolest in the whole game because it gives us the opportunity to create the only really starwarsy objects in the entire game (apart from jedi making their lightsabres). Everything else that is available in large quantities (so excluding mandolore / st armour) is completely generic - apart from droids which are about as intrinsically starwars as can be. If we limit these to 1/2 types per profession (apart from our own which we naturally want to kick buttock) then we are limiting ppls ability to get immersed in the star wars universe which has to be the overriding point of this game. i think there has to be a way of allowing anyone to take any droid, given a bit of sp and time investment, whether that ends up being a mini droids handling tree of one or two branches or tacking the handling abilities to the de tree (which to me seems to be a better option in terms of what would imo logically happen - ie de's learn to use their creations as they make them, and anyone who spends an amount of time with droids would learn to make some repairs or adjustments - like when you buy a car, you can generally change your own oil and pump up the tires pretty quickly (spend 15 rl sps in novice car engineer =D).

what do you think guys?

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Boeda wrote:

>1) Too many of the people who can use droidswould also beable to make them. Sure it would be possible to have only the handling branch, but once you have gone that far...<

It would cost 43 more skillpoints to master DE to get that last (master) box. Those dabbling up the tree would get much of the cert. I doubt those interested in only combat would not rather spend those 43 points somewhere else.

An example with points and cert enumerated is at :

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=59251&page=1

(how do i make a link ? Ive tried HTML. didnt work)

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Well, I could certainly live with that suggestion, though it is not my preference.

But I still suspect that many, many new MDE's would result. I know I would go that way, but then probably would with any really meaningful improvement. When CH call levels were concentrated in one tree, there seemed to be only a small market for tamed and trained creatures, though I can't be sure since I was not a CH. Perhaps it was due to the bump at MCH, which I note that you avoided for MDE.

As overbyte mentioned in starting this thread, there is an implication of "droid handling experience" instead of just crafting which is a real threat to many. Somehow I doubt his way out would fly. By spreading those handling skill bumps across many crafting professions, the implication of a different kind of experience goes away, and all advancement is clearlythrough crafting.

I am not really convinced that your skill/skillpoint ratio is right at every level. At DC4 you get a level 35 droid for only 49 skillpoints which seems a little high. (You added 10 not 5 to the skillpoints required at DC1 throwing the rest of your numbers off) A lot of heavycombat templates could afford that, and get a lot of leverage out of that droid. But you are certainly close. I think that was the kind of thing that the devs had in mind in the first place.

But the marketablity and assured skillpoint consumption are the big advantages of my proposal.

However, the hardest part is breaking the attitude that crafting skill is somehow a real trade off with combat. Too many of the folks on the crafting forums are not looking, yet, at their permanent inability to access most of the content or group with their friendsusing their crafting character. There are many players who don't even like the idea of having combat abilities opened to them. It seems hard to convince those folks that they would not be required to fight.