Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: No combat droids, please
Droid-Creator wrote:
As said above, if we can sell ALL of our combat droids, they will be mediocre at best in the power department to prevent balance issues.
This only assumes that everyone can use them, if there was some kind of cert system or something put into place then they could still be powerful enough and still be sellable.
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Betatoxin wrote:
Grimjakk wrote:
I disagree... the min-maxers will shift points to where ever they get the most bang for the buck. Certain combinations of skill-lines will always give benefits that outweigh the investments. Add a CH-level pet in there basically for free, and all we'll have done is free up the 29 points people had invested in the CH tree.
I don't think that's even arguable.
How exactly is it for free? Did you read my post? Can you actually respong to anything specific? I was pretty specific in how to address this exact issue. Let me try again.
By "for free", I meant that for the skill point investment of one elite profession that they were gonna beget anyway, they'd get a pet competitive with a MCH's... basically... for free.
And I did read your posts... basically I read it as yousaying "Congratulations, Mr. Master (InsertProfessionHere), here's your Mecha-Rancor™. Enjoy!" 
Sorry, if I got the wrong impression.
One of the goals ofthe new CH tree is to nerf the power of combat elites who for the price of 29 skill points in CH can command the most powerful pets in the game. Spreading CH-level droid pets across the entire profession listjust replaces the creature pet with a droid and frees up 29 skill points they can use somewhere else.
Enhancing brawler tanking abilities, nerfing non-CH pets down to level 10, neutering "dabbler" pets, reducing the number of faction pets callable... all these changes are designed to rein in the "Pet Wars".Introducingan MCH-level,general population droid pet... and don't kid yourself aboutcombat Masters being rare... just reinforces the problems they're fixing. I just don't see this happening.
As far as balancing professions... scaling the power of the droid is unworkable. In a system where a Master pistolier can also pick and choose from advanced combat lines in BH, Smuggler, TK, or Commando there are too many variables to even come close to balancing the droid pet to the owner. Pets complement someprofessions and tacticsfar more than others.
And that's just looking at PvP. There's more to game balance than comparing the strength of professions.
Betatoxin wrote:
You are saying that giving everyone droids with a cert system destroys balance. I am saying that only by giving everyone droids, with certain restrictions as appropriate the droids will have 0 net effect in inter profession balance. Oh and giving combat droids to DE only? That is the most incredibly unbalanced approach of all, but I already posted on that.
The only other option is not to have combat droids at all and if you are in that camp who does not want any DE made combat droids, well on that we will just have to agree to disagree.
No... I'm saying that giving everyone certs for the best droids we can make destroys GAME BALANCE. I don't give a crap about profession balance. In a skill-point system, that's too fluid to measure, anyway.
Its EXACTLY the same situation as if we were to cert every Elite Combat Master for Graul Maulers.
Don't get me wrong... I WANT powerful combat droids in game. But I recognize the effects on the game of making them general-population items. Certing 'em to Elite Combat Masters doesn't really solve that problem.
Again... what I would like to seeare low to mid-level combat droids equivalent to low to mid-level faction pets available for the general popluace. Give us4 levels of certs, General Populace, BasicMaster, EliteNovice and EliteMaster. The toughestdroid should be roughly equivalent to a Stormtrooper.
I want to see custom DE-only combat droids starting about StormCommando level and working up torival (but not eclipse) the rancor or graul mauler.
But most of all, I want our existing schematics and modules to work and actually make sense for once...
We do need combat droids in this game. However, DE only droids is NOT what we need.
The devs have to find a balanced way to make combat droids availible and attractive to other professions than DE's. That way we get the combat droids we are used to from the movies and attack the DE's biggest problem = sales.
Therearentan wrote:
Betatoxin is absolutely right.
People need to understand, this game cannot be played at the higher levels now without a Pet. Droids should be that pet for everyone but CH.
That's the point of the new changes. Brawlers are being given the abilities to replace pets in groups. (Whether its effective enough is an argument for another forum.)
At the same time, availability of pets are being cut back drastically... the player base will find another way to play the high end game.
Jenden wrote:
Droid-Creator wrote:
As said above, if we can sell ALL of our combat droids, they will be mediocre at best in the power department to prevent balance issues.
This only assumes that everyone can use them, if there was some kind of cert system or something put into place then they could still be powerful enough and still be sellable.Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
No, the reason I say they will be medioscre is because they will be balanced to account for high combat skills. The devs will not want a high powered combat class to also have a high powered pet, why do you think they are nerfing non-CH pets ? Very few powergamers are going to go through the MDE grind to get a pet thats only slightly better than what they can just buy, nor will they waste that many precious skill points. I want the MDE one to be slightly better than sellable ones, I don't it to be the end all, be all of uberness.
I'm new to droid engineer, and as such have remained quiet throughout this discussion, but feel it neccessary now to throw my opinion into the ring.
Do I think there should be DE only droids....no, I don't. Just as weaponsmiths can't use all of the weapons they make, and there is no armorsmith only armor...(weaponsmiths don't get certs for all the weapons, do they?)...anything we make should be useable by anyone.
Do I think DE's should have multiple droid capability just as CH has multiple creature capability...most definately. This would reflect the DE's deeper understanding of droids and there capabilities, the DE rapport with the droids they create. This makes much more sense than DE only droids.
This will by no means turn DE's into combat machines. A DE/combat profession would probably do just as well as a CH/combat profession character would. Why is this wrong, considering the profession? DE's aren't like other crafting professions. We create psuedo-life, and DE would be closer to BE in my book than any crafting profession.
To my knowledge, however, BE's do not have the ability to use the creatures that they can create, outside of CH skills they may or may not have. This, too, I think is wrong, but is for another forum...heh.
The BE non-usage thing could be a usable argument against DE's using multiple droids, which brings up the argument that droids should have CL's and we should have a Droid Handler profession, which is just silly so don't try that route....
Well, thats my rambling 2 credits, for what they are worth.
Hey I have a great idea for the game. How bought all of you people take a deep breath...are you doing it? Now grow up!!! Who wants to pay for a game where you can't have combat? Thats why we play games. I am not against grinding, I just ground to master Artisan, Organic4, and became a bio-engineer in two days. It was fun, got in a a bunch of good conversations but hunting creatures and interacting with other players while I do this is the heart of the game for me, and for every person I've run into. Oh yea, about this game being unfriendly to non combat people? I think there's plenty enough points to go through a comabt class and have some fun hunting with other people. Grow up people, this is a game. This game is dangerously close tochanging titles to "Chore Wars, a empire at work". I for one would be happy to see another "tank". Here's a message for the dev's though. I understand why you can't heal a at-st with a medpack because it would be kindof rediculous, but then isn't a metal frame bleeding, diseased, stunned ect. kindof rediculous? How about having some of these ship builders that are comming up the ability to heal at-st's...might make people want to go imp more. Ciao cry baby's
Tonsoffun
former,Master CH, comando 0040, medic 0000
now Master artisan, bio engineer 0010, master marskman, medic 3104 or something like that
Droid-Creator wrote:
No, the reason I say they will be medioscre is because they will be balanced to account for high combat skills. The devs will not want a high powered combat class to also have a high powered pet, why do you think they are nerfing non-CH pets ? Very few powergamers are going to go through the MDE grind to get a pet thats only slightly better than what they can just buy, nor will they waste that many precious skill points. I want the MDE one to be slightly better than sellable ones, I don't it to be the end all, be all of uberness.
right, why do you think a non-combat character should be equal in power to a combat character? If you want to be good in combat take a combat profession, if they make decent combat droids certed appropriately then you still won't be as strong as a combat profession with the droid, but why should you?
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DakrStar Inc.
I think that there are several issues here including some that most people are overlooking.
1) Droids are fundamentally different than live creatures. Except for the rare blips in continuity (IG-88, R2, C3PO) droids have no awareness. They are driven by computer programs. They respondin a predetermined manner to whatever stimuli they encounter. This is completely different from creatures. With living creatures, the process of creating the creature and then training it are separate. With droids, the programs are written by the engineer when the droid is created. To me, this invalidates the argument the DEs are just BEs working with inorganic materials. By their nature, DEs are both creators and trainers of droids.
2) In regards to the "but we don't see combat droids in episodes 4-6" argument. Let's think about this logically. According to most of the literature that is available on the Clone Wars, the Old Republic won in large part because clones are capable of reason while droids are not. In the time of ANH, the Empire still has LOTs of clones left. Why would they suddenly start using battle droids? Now let's take a look at the Rebels. They're broke. They wear whatever uniforms they can scrounge up. They fight with battered equipment. Where are they going to get the money for battle droid technology. And... lest we forget... we see a grand total of maybe 6 locales (Tat., Yavin, Hoth, Dagobah, Bespin, Endor) out of an entire galaxy. I think it is safe to assume that battle droids may have been very prevalent in other parts of the galaxy.
3) The overwhelming number of pets that you see in SWG are due to fact that you can expend 35 skill points and command the best pets in the game. This is already being addressed by SOE. I would assume that they would apply the same logic to whatever new functions they come up with for DE. So you would have to master the profession to gain access to the best droids.
4) The inclusion of Combat Droid modules does not in any way impact the ability of the DE that only engages in crafting to have an enjoyable and profitable experience.
5) Combat droids should be significantly more powerful than they are today. I don't think they should be able to solo a rancor, but a player with some level of combat skill (say master marksman) should be an even match. To minimize the number of uber combat droids (for arguments sake- say droidekas), there should be some component / schematic combination that is only available as the result of a quest (not necessarily a loot drop).
100% of the Droid Engineers that I know want Combat Droids in the game and want to be able to control their own droids. I am one of them.
Greco - Master Droid Engineer, Sunrunner Galaxy
I'll repeat it for about the 12th time...
I don't want to be equal, I would like to be semi close though. If the top end droid is available to all it will be balanced to account for master combat professions, which means its going to have a relatively low damage output because the owner is going to be assumed to have a high damage output. Anyone using the droid as their primary attack without a high combat skills is going to be at a SEVERE disadvantage because of this.
Armorsmiths want to be able to wear 2 suits of armor at once! Who's with me?
Lochar wrote:
I think a droid for MDE is fine, but were a merchant class not a CH class. What would be next special clothes ONLY for tailors, Weapons only a master weaponsmith can use, armor for armorsmiths?
Grungie wrote:
Lochar wrote:
I think a droid for MDE is fine, but were a merchant class not a CH class. What would be next special clothes ONLY for tailors, Weapons only a master weaponsmith can use, armor for armorsmiths?
Armorsmiths want to be able to wear 2 suits of armor at once! Who's with me?
Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing any of those things Lochar mentions, provided they are only available to the MASTER in those professions. By placing it in master you would limit dabblers. Most won't spend all those points to master a skill to get something thats only a tiny bit better than what they can get without spending the extra points.