Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: I know why droids are the Black Sheep of SWG and Creatures are L337
I was thinking about it today: WHY have the devs created droids to be weak, ugly, and lame while letting CH's have uber creatures, and sell ones that stomp on droids to anyone?
I have theorized an answer that makes sense to me:
1. The devs had to create _hundreds_ if not _thousands_ of different creature types so that all the fighters could kill stuff in thegame, so they could level up, etc.
2. They spent literally decades of man-years creating these different creatures: programmed behavior, animations, sounds, characteristics (HAM, armor, resistances, planet, pack assist, etc.)
3. They programmed droids, too, but less than 20 different kinds, as they had little role in the fighters' missions.
4. The sheer size and might of the enemy creatures they created dwarfed the power of even the toughest player, _by design_, requiring players to use tamed creatures to tank these enemy creatures.
5. The CH class now has access to these thousands of different creatures, and _every_ fighter can use one, even needs one to survive and level up. Don't believe me? Go try to kill a giant baz nitch lair with a probot: You're dead in 2 minutes. Now go with a graul mauler: you 0wn it. Go with a rock beetle and HEAL IT as it tanks: you 0wn it. (note: rock beetles can be controlled by anyone).
6. Droid engineers have access to the same 20 droids, of which 1 is a viable combat droid for small to medium creatures. Since there are so many fighters and they can all have more powerful creatures, even that combat droid is not needed.
7. The Devs WILL NOT fix this imbalance because they cannot: They made the game mechanics to need giant creatures to tank the other giant creatures. They took advantage of all the time they spent PROGRAMMING the THOUSANDS of creatures instead of spending more time programming more droid types and functions. They had to ship their product soon; it's a money pit until they ship it. No time to program droids: Just make use of the creatures.
8. Months into the game the devs half-heartedly lament the fact that "creatures are everywhere" and "droids aren't", when this wasan _inevitable_ result of their game design.
9. Summary: They spent so much time programming creatures that they had to use them for everything they could to leverage all that effort. They did a great job with creatures, but they could have taken some time from creatures and made more droids. As it is, the ratio is200 creatures : 1 droid.
Solution:
Implement their proposed changes to melee classes giving defensive specials so that _players_ can tank big creatures. Make armor _crucial_ for this new player tanking to work, giving a purpose for armor. Spend time, NOT ON PLAYER MOUNTS, which once again just takes advantage of developer creature effort, and instead on Droids. Create new droid types, and more functions for droids. Change mechanics that currently allow CH's to tame huge creatures that tank enemy creatures that way melee defensive player tanks, armor, and droids are balanced.
This is one long post. If anyone reads it: May you give your ideas to support it. If you disagree or have other ideas, post them!
Come on, it's Star Wars for god's sake, how many Tusk Cats flew in an X-wing to go after the death star, how many GMaulers actually served drinks on Jabba's floating cantina, how many Mereks carried the ultimate message that dragged an old jedi out of the sand dunes and sparked life into the new ranks of the Jedi...........
This game has got to start revolving around the droids soon here or it is not true to the genre nor the players and the producers and production managers and story line editors have blown it with the longevity of this game and they should go back and watch it from the beginning to see what really happens to a Rancor.
Devs give the DEs some hope here and let them know what is in store and that the BEST has been saved for last, the reason vehicles are taking so much time is that they are being placed into the DE tree and being made to fit ( we can make a probot that levitates....hehe ).
Phlay
Bloodfin
Master Architect/Droid Polisher
Yes, again another post the Devs will not respond to. Another good post with good intentions made by a person that cares enough about SWG to take time away from the game to post.
One person is all it would take to make hundreds of people feel better, to inspire hope for their beloved class. One person to take 3 minutes of typing time to tell us whats happening. One person, Sony. One person LucasArts. Just one person, in this specific situation, CAN make a difference. One person.
Faellyn wrote:
. It's getting very discouraging.
That is 99% of the reason why folks have given up going to that forum to discuss things, bring suggestions, etc.. because after months of being continually ignored by everyone who would have the power to change things for the better, after weeks of trying to bring viable solutions to the problems plaguing this class, it has gotten to the point that we're sick to death of trying to make this class work.
I love almost every idea out there that has been brought up in one way shape or form, and nearly all of them would be incredible WORKING solutions that can be implemented within a really short amount of time. But when you go as long between getting any kind of response to the issues we see every single minute we play, it does get very frustrating, very discouraging and very much UNFUN.
Its not a rant. just stating the facts as they stand today.
Faellyn wrote:
I agree 100%!! But where are you guy to back me up when I post these same kind of suggestions to the SWG Discussion forum? Every thread I post there on this subject is either flamed or ignored. It's getting very discouraging.
Hi Faellyn. I try to post on the SWG discussion forum and bump posts from fellow DE's, but that forum moves too fast. 10 minutes go by and 3 pages of new posts are already up! I can't keep up with it.
Thanks for the positive feedback guys. I went ahead and ground out 2 droid refinement skills today, leaving me with one more skill before Master DE.
I also went to the NPC trainer for Armorsmith and now I am a Novice Armorsmith. I'm going to try that out some as soon as I hit Mmaster DE in the next few days.
Peace!
agreed! I just hope that we are getting vehicles and that they are not making a whole new profession for it. i have yet to see official word that we wiull be the sole profession making these, so i am skeptical as to the rumors that have been flying around that we will get. sorry, but like a bad relationship, i have been hurt too many times (with the lack of DE fixes) to trust so easily in SOE.
Bool Zero, Droid designer (intrepid) on corellia, tyrena
shop located out of the gate of shuttleport b (the part of the city no one goes to) and across the river to the S/SW
darn it, i really need to remember the coords to my own shop! 
So I go looking, get up to 100 creatures...and zero droids. Keep counting...200 creatures, oooh...1 droid, oh, just a seeker a newbie bought. 300 creatures...still just that one seeker, but did count 35 AT-STs though that's a seperate issue.
Ok, so obviously I'm in the wrong town. Let's try Moenia since my shop is nearby. 100 creatures...lots of droids, but they all turn out to be NPCs. 200 creatures...still no droids. 300 creatures...2 droids, both crafting stations while the crafter was waiting for the shuttle.
Somewhere there's a problem here...and I doubt that it was the droids 'overbalancing' everything that caused the Probots to be nerfed.
Just my 2 credits...which I'll have if I ever sell anything.
droids and controlled armies are more apart of star wars than creature handling.
Didn't you read raph's posts in the giant faction pets in pve post? CH is just more star warsy than droids I guess, Imean omg there was a rancor in a hole in the ground in return of the jedi, and omg there was those animals in episode 2 that were being led around with long arse sticks and eating everyone. There's CH's in the movies!!
Hehe in all honesty I wish they'd make a new position over there at soe. They say they're not going to hire more staff to fix all the problems in the game. How about hiring one more, a guy who knows more about the star wars universe other than watching the movies once when he was a kid. Hell go a step further make it someone who has read some books and/or is familiar with the game universe.