Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Drashk, TH is STILL getting it wrong...can you see what you can do...
Quote from TH in the In Live Forum:
For instance, if a grouping of professions gets "Droid Certifications", then you instantly get a migration of people to that profession to get the combat advantages. The advantage is simply doubling your combat balance. For instance, If Im a Carbineer and I have a droid, I've essentially doubled my combat abilities. So If I group with someone else who has access to high level droids, 2 players = 4, 4 players = 8 and so on.
Combat becomes out of balance and too easy. If that were the case all combat would have to be increased in difficulty. If 4 players suddenly have the same combat ability as 8, you can see how things would spin out of control.
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.
Ok, what he is arguing is fundamentally flawed in3 ways:
(1) He is assuming that we are asking for droids at least as powerful as players...in other wordsone droid is just as strong as one player. This is the farthest from the truth because (1) we aren't asking for CL50 mega-droids, just better combat droids (maybe CL20-25 at the TOP end); and (2) the droid cert. idea would limit the best droids to the elite characters who have essentially maxxed their characters out. He is assuming that a droid that is equal to a playernovice marksman will be unbalancing to a master BH/smuggler. This is just wrong.
(2) He is assuming there will be a migration to certain professions for droid abilities with certifications. How can there be with the plan you proposed? All the "droid points" are well distributed and spread relatively evenly over all professions. CLEARLY, there is no incentive for people to take up any profession purely for droid abilities.
In fact, the very solution he is proposing does the exact thing he says our proposal does. If there is a DH tree in the DE profession, how many people will become DEs just for that tree? We have discussed the droid handling tree at length and already dismissed it...why is TH ignoring months of discussion and re-proposing solutions we already killed?
(3) TH is ignoring the current state of the game. Because droids are permadeath, there is NO way that giving players CL20 droids is as unbalancing as gurrecks. People used gurrecks as tanks because they were expendible...when it died you just healed it and recalled it. With droids, if a person buys a 50k-75k combat droid, they are not going to use it to "overtank" mobs that they can't handle...to do so would be to risk a truckload of money. If devs implement were to make droids unhealable except for repair/power droids and/or DE repair kits, this would further limit tanking ability to keep it in check.
We need to make sure that TH sees the whole picture, not just the narrow "It won't work" approach he is taking.
p.s. If you are reading this and think of additional considerations...please add them.
Daker-Naritus wrote:
(3) TH is ignoring the current state of the game. Because droids are permadeath, there is NO way that giving players CL20 droids is as unbalancing as gurrecks. People used gurrecks as tanks because they were expendible...when it died you just healed it and recalled it. With droids, if a person buys a 50k-75k combat droid, they are not going to use it to "overtank" mobs that they can't handle...to do so would be to risk a truckload of money. If devs implement were to make droids unhealable except for repair/power droids and/or DE repair kits, this would further limit tanking ability to keep it in check.
Droids currently have permadeath? Really? Mine must be bugged, then, because I haven't had a droid die in months.
Kollos wrote:
Daker-Naritus wrote:
(3) TH is ignoring the current state of the game. Because droids are permadeath, there is NO way that giving players CL20 droids is as unbalancing as gurrecks. People used gurrecks as tanks because they were expendible...when it died you just healed it and recalled it. With droids, if a person buys a 50k-75k combat droid, they are not going to use it to "overtank" mobs that they can't handle...to do so would be to risk a truckload of money. If devs implement were to make droids unhealable except for repair/power droids and/or DE repair kits, this would further limit tanking ability to keep it in check.
Droids currently have permadeath? Really? Mine must be bugged, then, because I haven't had a droid die in months.
LOL, maybe I'm just making crap...I had a probot die last night in fact
i would just like to point out that droids arnt permadeath. My R3 med/craft bot has been shot many a times while i was TEFed from healling and such, and he lets out the sounds like in ANH when Artoo gets blasted in the back of the X wing and falls over, but i just store him and bring him back out and hes alive with a little ham damage that he heals over time or i can have a buddies bot repair him to full.
Daker-Naritus wrote:
(3) TH is ignoring the current state of the game. Because droids are permadeath, there is NO way that giving players CL20 droids is as unbalancing as gurrecks. People used gurrecks as tanks because they were expendible...when it died you just healed it and recalled it. With droids, if a person buys a 50k-75k combat droid, they are not going to use it to "overtank" mobs that they can't handle...to do so would be to risk a truckload of money. If devs implement were to make droids unhealable except for repair/power droids and/or DE repair kits, this would further limit tanking ability to keep it in check.
We need to make sure that TH sees the whole picture, not just the narrow "It won't work" approach he is taking.
p.s. If you are reading this and think of additional considerations...please add them.
/agree
Kollos wrote:
Droids currently have permadeath? Really? Mine must be bugged, then, because I haven't had a droid die in months.
/bow
Respectfully,
TheRealTK421 wrote:
/agree
Kollos wrote:
Droids currently have permadeath? Really? Mine must be bugged, then, because I haven't had a droid die in months.
Hmmmmm, maybe I'm fundamentally flawed...
I have had several droids die over the past month or so....what is the difference in our experiences? Is there such a thing as a droid DB?
Daker-Naritus wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
/agree
Kollos wrote:
Droids currently have permadeath? Really? Mine must be bugged, then, because I haven't had a droid die in months.
Hmmmmm, maybe I'm fundamentally flawed...
I have had several droids die over the past month or so....what is the difference in our experiences? Is there such a thing as a droid DB?
Dunno... but a group I was in had 3 Probots all "killed" last night in one battle and not a one of them suffered permadeath. Once the players recovered from incap we were all able to store our Probots and continue on normally. Build camp, call new probots, rinse, repeat.
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Hmmmmm, maybe I'm fundamentally flawed...
I have had several droids die over the past month or so....what is the difference in our experiences? Is there such a thing as a droid DB?
The droid should autostore when it's HAM damage reaches zero. It should still be, however, in your datapad.
If you allow it time, it will heal on its own...but shouldn't "die" (i.e. be destroyed).
/bow
Respectfully,
*Stares Blankly at the Screen*
Have I been leaving for dead (destroying) droids that are still alive? How cruel is that? Oh the humanity...
Time to experiment tonight...
Far as I know, Droids at 0 HAM don't autostore. In the case of Probots anyway they dis-assemble and lie on the ground looking dead.
Target them and store them...ready to go again in 30 mins or so.
I think you have been destroying 'sleeping' droids
*wipes tear from her eye*
Daker-Naritus wrote:
*Stares Blankly at the Screen*
Have I been leaving for dead (destroying) droids that are still alive? How cruel is that? Oh the humanity...
Time to experiment tonight...
They fall apart and collapse to the ground, but you can still target them which lets you know that they're still "alive". Furthermore, they're still grouped with you and you can see which HAM bar killed 'em.
What's odd is that the droids last night didn't auto-store, either. I had completely forgotten that they were supposed to do that because I've never seen that, either. As I recall it is supposed to be after some fixed amount of time, though, so it is entirely possible that I stored my droid manually before it could auto-store.
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(1) He is assuming that we are asking for droids at least as powerful as players...in other words one droid is just as strong as one player. This is the farthest from the truth because (1) we aren't asking for CL50 mega-droids, just better combat droids (maybe CL20-25 at the TOP end); and (2) the droid cert. idea would limit the best droids to the elite characters who have essentially maxxed their characters out. He is assuming that a droid that is equal to a player novice marksman will be unbalancing to a master BH/smuggler. This is just wrong.
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Wrong. Many of us DO want CL50 mega droids, and see no reason to piss away our time on CL25 droids for our maximum ability. Your kind of thinking, had the Bio-Engineers followed it, would have truly jacked them over as a profession - it will do no less for us.
We should be able to, with great craftsmanship, make DL70 droids, just like there are CL70 pets. The issue of how many people ought to be able to access them is an entirely different story.