Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: After Reading the Posts this Morning, a Compromise Proposal
It ensures DEs can use what they make
It allows droids to be powerful
It ensure that it is balanced with the rest of the game
It also has the following additional nice properties which are somewhat tangential:
It encourages specialization in combat classes
It reduced dabbling in combat classes
So how do we do this? Basically you start with the assumption that a DE is able to use all the droids he creates. This is consistent with a CH who can use the pets he tames from the wild and involves a similar point expendature to do so. DEs should perhaps get the ability to have more than one combat droid due to the point cost.
Second, you create a new, small skill tree which opens up whenever you master a hybrid or combat profession. All combat professions lead to the same tree, so there is no risk of someone doing the tree once. So you hit master TKA, you know have access to the new tree, let's call it "Droid Use".
The droid use tree is a simple, single line tree which has roughly 15-20 points of skills in it. The specific mechanics of the tree would need to be worked out but it would basically allow you to use better droids in combat as you went up the tree culminating with the droideka (or equivalent) at the top rank.
If it was determined to be necesssary to allow organic pet use in this tree, that would be fine as well but my personal preference would be to make it droid specific as this is star wars.
So it is a cert system in a way, but all certs are in a new tree which is only accessible after mastering a combat profession. All of these certs are also placed in the master droid engineer tree so that master DEs, spending way more points than the droid use tree, have access to them.
Instead of droid use, you could adopt a system +DroidLevel like is used in CH. This would be preferable if you are allowing lots of fun experimentation on the part of the DEs to make different types of combat droids. This also lets you give additional pet levels to combat professions which take more points to master (like commando and BH). For example, you master commando and one of the immediate benefits you get is +5 DroidLevel. You also advance through the droid use tree and wind up with +25 droid levels total, whereas a master pistoleer has +20 droid levels since the master pistoleer box has no additional levels.
Obviously this would all need to be balanced but in my opinion could provide a good workable solution. It allows the droids to be strong, the DE to be useful, specialization to be encouraged, etc.
Thoughts?
Ywi Odiwovvi
Master Droid Engineer
Corbantis
Aside from DE's getting all the droids for no cost I like the idea, and its essentially a new profession (though a mini-profession).
The only obvious down side to the combat classes is that you will NEED to spend those 20 points and buy the most uber droid to compete at that point.
(much like a gun or armor)...
marsx wrote:
The only obvious down side to the combat classes is that you will NEED to spend those 20 points and buy the most uber droid to compete at that point.
(much like a gun or armor)...
Not necessarily (and the specific number of points would need to be worked out depending on some factors). They could have put those 20 points towards advancing some other combat profession, or getting themselves medic, or something else along those lines. adding a droid skill tree allows players to choose weather they want to be better in combat because of combat skills or because of droids.
Jenden said:
"Aside from DE's getting all the droids for no cost I like the idea, and its essentially a new profession (though a mini-profession)."
Are you against that because it is imbalancing? I'm figuring because the DEs are spending much more points than the "droid-use mini-profession" that it would be OK. Similar to the CH profession in point use and benefit. Seems ok to me, though another option would be to give the MDEs access to this mini-profession directly as opposed to needing a elite combat mastery like everyone else. Then you require that MDEs finish the mini-prof before they can use the combat droids. Thoughts?
marsx said:
"The only obvious down side to the combat classes is that you will NEED to spend those 20 points and buy the most uber droid to compete at that point.
(much like a gun or armor)..."
I agree to a point. I certainly want the droids to be useful, but I'm thinking that not everyone will want to do it. For example, today with 250 points you can master pistoleer, smuggler, and TKA all at the same time. You wouldn't have room to get the droids too but perhaps the benefits of having the 3 elite profession masteries outweigh the benefits of the droids? That would be a balance issue. So I see some folks getting the droid and others perhaps going for a different template.
Let's keep the comments coming.
Thanks,
Ywi Odiwovvi
Master Droid Engineer
Corbantis
Very similar to Woody's suggestion:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=54029
this is a good compromise.
if they insist on a DH profession make it a mini profession so it will still use skillpoints up just not 64 SP plus prerequisites (the only prerequisite would be masterey of an elite profession).
besides, an entire profession built around controlling droids doesn't make sense. what could they possibly fill up 4 whole trees up with?
many people enhance their combat skills with novice medic or dabble in other professions that compliment their main combat skill and would have to give some of these type things up if they want to use combat droids.
this may still not be balanced enough for the devs but it sounds like a good idea to me.
Are you against that because it is imbalancing? I'm figuring because the DEs are spending much more points than the "droid-use mini-profession" that it would be OK. Similar to the CH profession in point use and benefit. Seems ok to me, though another option would be to give the MDEs access to this mini-profession directly as opposed to needing a elite combat mastery like everyone else. Then you require that MDEs finish the mini-prof before they can use the combat droids. Thoughts?
The problem I have with it is we are already a full crafting profession. Yes, we are spending those points, but its not like they are going into a black hole somewhere. We receive for our points the ability to create various droids and droid components (and hopefully even more downt he road). I think that making the skill tree accessible to DE's would work out ok, though I also think it really doesn't need to require a master combat profession under it at all, though thats just minor details. The main idea behind it is you are spending skillpoints to use the higher end combat droids, making them not free, and balancing it out.
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
Very similar to Woody's suggestion:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=54029
I must not be reading something right then. This gives anyone access to the combat droid tree, Woody's suggestion (if I read it right) gives those combat droids exclusively to DE's.
Jenden wrote:
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:Very similar to Woody's suggestion:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=54029
I must not be reading something right then. This gives anyone access to the combat droid tree, Woody's suggestion (if I read it right) gives those combat droids exclusively to DE's.
Jenden, I had a similar confusion. I posted a link to this proposal over on Woody's post to see if he can come give his thoughts here.
I think Woody's proposal is a bit too far in the opposite direction. I hope something like what were discussing here can be worked out as it seems like a win for everyone.
Ywi
Gonna post a link to the other new idea that cropped up and then post one there for this thread. That way people will see both ideas I hope.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=53337
P.S. - So you don't get confused he's talking about a skill tree for the droid, not the player.