Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: A Solution to the Droid Engineer and Droid Handling professions
I know many of you do not know me on these boards. I usually spend my time on the politician boards because that profession needs some serious help
Anyway, I have an idea that might make everyone happy in this whole debate about Droid Engineers/Droid Handlers.
Many people came Droid Engineers because they had a passion to be work and build droids just like in the movies. I love being a Droid Engineer and I wouldn't give it up for anything. I like crafting and that is a plus of the Droid Engineer professions. Ever since I joined SWG (which was during beta) I always dreamed of combat droids finally coming into the game. Well as many as you know, they are finally going to be released. But the manner in which they are being released is very sad and crushes my dream.
Not allowing Droid Engineers to be able to control the high level combat droids would go against everything that the Engineer is about. We, Droid Engineers, completely make the droid from the brain, the personality and all the way to how it looks. We program the droid to obey us. How would it be logical if we could not control the droid that we created?
Sure many of you will point out the bio-engineer/creature handler professions. But before you do, realize one thing. Droid and creatures are completely different. Creatures are living, breathing beings that have a mind of their own and it takes proper talent and knowledge to control one (hence a creature handler profession). But droids are not living, they are completely programmed by the Engineer. That is a major difference.
Now to the solution. All Droid Engineers love making droids, but also would like to control them. It would only make sense to allow Droid Engineers to also control the droids they make. However, there are some that do not wish to craft. There are people out there that HATE crafting with a passion, but would like to control a high level droid. So with that said, I propose that the Droid Handling profession is eyed at those that do not wish to craft the droids just use them. Of course that is the purpose of the Handling profession. However, why make the Droid Engineers suffer? It is not logical and therefore both professions should be able to control high level droids.
So to basically reiterate what I just said (for those that do not wish to read my entire post 
) Droid Engineers and Droid Handlers should be able to control the high level droids, and let the person decide if they wish to craft the droids or just use them. Many people would just use the droid handling profession for 1) probably be less skill points then to get DE and 2) many hate crafting. Allowing people to choose will give more freedom, will make everyone happy and will allow the Droid Engineers to be able to do the one thing that many of them wanted to do since the beginning...to build their droid and see it in action.
Thank you and comments are appreciated
JaronElus wrote:
So to basically reiterate what I just said (for those that do not wish to read my entire post
This is a reasonable idea as long as there is some sort of advantage to taking Droid Handler over Droid Engineer. There's already a built-in advantage to taking Droid Engineer - you can craft your own Droids. So in order to make the two professions balanced, there would have to be an advantage to taking Droid Handler as well.
That advantage could be that Droid Handlers are better at handling droids in combat, or it could be that the Droid Handler profession uses fewer skill points, or it could be that Droid Handlers can control more than one droid at a time (which presumes that Droid Engineers would not be able to). But there must be something or the profession would fail.
The advantage(s) of being a Droid Handler over a Droid Engineer could be a few things.
1) Fewer skill points (this has to be definite because DEs go through the artisan tree anyway)
2) Allow the DH to control more droids. (I can live with this, just so I can at least control 1 high level combat droid)
3) The droids get better stats, ie: better accuracy, higher damage or faster response times.
There are many possibilities to this.
I was thinking, why not reorganize the DE skill tree to contain a Droid Handling Tree? Move the skills in Droid Refinement somewhere else (or not) and make that tree a DH tree. Those that want to use high level droids can dabble for that tree, but MDE's still get to use them too. It's kind of like the problem we had with CH dabblers, but intentionally instead of via exploit...
It probably wouldn't work for exactly that reason, but I thought I'd toss it out there anyway.
Just brainstorming here a little....
I could see where were droid "handling" might be analogous tosome form of slicing.Slicing or hacking/highjacking a droidisconsistentwith the movies, too. At the beginning of ANH, after beingcaptured and sold to Luke's uncle C3PO easily accepts Luke as his master, though R2 was a tougher nut to crack, he steadfastly insisted Obi-wan was his master. .....hmmm stealable droids.....
The entire reason for having Droid Handlers is because the "crafting purists" in the Droid Engineer community have already loudly and repeatedly refused to have the abilities themselves. We had this in our hands before, and cast it aside.
Too late now to go back.
while its a more appealing approach than what is being stated by TH i think its still not good for the game.
I think adding a DH skill tree to DE also will not work as you still need to craft to get DE and thats what some people dont want.
heres my suggestion.
"Combat droids are illegal to use in the SW Universe according to an Imperial Decree."
DE can make droids so its obvious they should be able to use them without a shadow of a doubt. But those professions who are less likely to follow lmperial Decree (bounty hunters, smugglers) should have combat droid certifications added to them also. Keep the combat droids in the hands of those willing to break the lore to use them and in the hands of those who make. this will keep the SW feel in SWG which atm is growing further and further apart.
I would also like to take the time to say that IMO the Droid Engineer Fix has become blurred and lost - the original reason for theDE fix was to make any level of the DE profession profitable, to make existing droids more useful to the customers and to BALANCE the gap between NOVICE and MASTER DE.
That's not a bad idea. The devs seem to be reluctant to have anything with an irregular skill point cost, though.
Disclaimer: That doesn't mean that the Droid Handler profession is any less retarded.
CapnSteve wrote:
That's not a bad idea. The devs seem to be reluctant to have anything with an irregular skill point cost, though.
That is the thing though. Where will they be putting the Droid Handling profession? It can't be like creature handler stemming off of the scout profession. The Droid Handling profession will either be a separate profession (like scout) or will be added onto the Droid Engineer profession. Having a separate profession would be the best, however I do not know what they could put in there to make sense without just putting a lot of "filling" into the profession. If they added it to the Droid Engineer tree, that would defeat the whole purpose, in my opinion, of having a Droid Handling profession. People will still have to craft just to get to Novice Droid Engineer before they can go up the Handling part.
It seems to me as though the Droid Handling profession is just the dev's answer to a fear that Droid Engineer would be too much. I can understand how they can see it as being too much, but it all depends on how powerful the droids really are. Droidekas are droids that the devs would like to see in the game, just as everyone else would. However, there is a line that the devs should not cross on how much power to give them. Droid should be good defenders and help their masters in what they wish, but they could not defeat a commando, bounty hunter or any other elite profession. If this is the case, why make an entirely new profession to stem the fear of one profession being out of balanced?
The Droid Engineer profession is the weakest artisan profession in the game. Every other profession is very profitable. However, the common Droid Engineer, does not get that many sells except medical droids, seekersand the occasional star wars buff that just wants an R2 or protocol droid for looks. Not only does all droids need to be revamped to be more useful to the common player, but we should alsohave the luxury of combat droids use.
It just would not make sense to make an entirely new tree without giving the Droid Engineers the ability to control the high level droids too. I understand that many Droid Engineers love crafting, which I am one of them. But not having the option to actually use the droid that I make is just ridiculous. I am not a fighter, so honestly, I do not care either way if a Droid Handling profession is created. But not allowing Droid Engineers the ability to control their own droids, no matter the level is just plain wrong. That basically gives all Droid Engineers a slap in the face, for we worked hard to become Masters to be able to understand droids, and now we wouldn't be able to control them. It would be very sad to see that happen, and I can bet many Droid Engineers will drop the profession and make us even fewer then we are now.
Salahsur wrote:
Didn't you know?
The entire reason for having Droid Handlers is because the "crafting purists" in the Droid Engineer community have already loudly and repeatedly refused to have the abilities themselves. We had this in our hands before, and cast it aside.
Too late now to go back.
No, the reason for having Droid Handlers is because of the "combat wackos" who loudly and repeatedly demanded the Droideka, which is clearly too powerful to be simply added into the Droid Engineer skill tree. Had the people campaigning for combat droids managed their expectations to a reasonable level, we might have been able to get some sort of hybrid system introduced without the need fora separate Droid Handler class.
Kollos wrote:
Salahsur wrote: Didn't you know? The entire reason for having Droid Handlers is because the "crafting purists" in the Droid Engineer community have already loudly and repeatedly refused to have the abilities themselves. We had this in our hands before, and cast it aside. Too late now to go back.
No, the reason for having Droid Handlers is because of the "combat wackos" who loudly and repeatedly demanded the Droideka, which is clearly too powerful to be simply added into the Droid Engineer skill tree. Had the people campaigning for combat droids managed their expectations to a reasonable level, we might have been able to get some sort of hybrid system introduced without the need fora separate Droid Handler class.
No...
Quote from TH in the In Live Forum:
The alternative is to stick put a "droid handling tree" in with Droid engineers. The confusion came in because over the past few weeks, DE's have stated they would prefer to be a crafting profession. In the shakeout, it seems the issue has many angles.
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
Kollos wrote:
Salahsur wrote: Didn't you know? The entire reason for having Droid Handlers is because the "crafting purists" in the Droid Engineer community have already loudly and repeatedly refused to have the abilities themselves. We had this in our hands before, and cast it aside. Too late now to go back.
No, the reason for having Droid Handlers is because of the "combat wackos" who loudly and repeatedly demanded the Droideka, which is clearly too powerful to be simply added into the Droid Engineer skill tree. Had the people campaigning for combat droids managed their expectations to a reasonable level, we might have been able to get some sort of hybrid system introduced without the need fora separate Droid Handler class.
No...
Quote from TH in the In Live Forum:
The alternative is to stick put a "droid handling tree" in with Droid engineers. The confusion came in because over the past few weeks, DE's have stated they would prefer to be a crafting profession. In the shakeout, it seems the issue has many angles.
Like I said in the other thread, since when did you start believing everything that Thunderheart says?
TH and the Devs clearly had some pre-conceived notion that "combat droid" means "Droideka". Where do you think they got that idea? It was this pre-conceived notion that we wanted Droideka-level combat droids added that made Droid Handler necessary because something that powerful could not have been added to Droid Engineer without making the existing profession too powerful.