Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: No combat droids, please
Droid-Creator wrote:
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.
Ok, so assuming you've got this droid that only DE's can use, and it is therefore balanced taking into account you have no combat skills and raising you to roughly the level of a master marksman (we'll even say half the strength, which isn't a whole lot better than the current probot if your talking about you plus the droid), that means that it has given you abou35 skill points worth of skills for nothing (yes, I'm not factoring in the skillpoints it takes for MDE because you still have all the associated skills, which is a full crafting profession in and of itself. I'm not sure how this would be balanced at all.
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas.
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Maarek, I completely disagree with you and you are infact, wrong.
Just because you didn't see combat droids in the original triligy, doesn't mean they werent there. Infact as I remember, there was a combat/bounty hunter droid in "The Empire Strikes Back" standing next to a Trandosian on the bridge of Vaders stardestroyer. And how about the Probot on Hoth? Just because the Trade federation and the Intergalactic banking clan weren't visable, doesn't mean they weren't there and doesn't mean they had no combat droids.
As for some bartender on tatooine? Its his bar and his rules. Again, doesnt mean everyone hated droids and there were no combat droids.
Take care...
I am not a DE, but would like to put in my two cents worth.
1. What everyone has been asking for is few creatures and more droids.
2. The devs want to reduce dabblers.
If you make most or all of the good combat droids DE only, then you have just created another CH class. And most everyone that now dabbles in CH will dabble in DE. This will just create more problems. I think this can be handled in a balanced fashion if:
1. Let everyone have combat droids of some type, with some restrictions. (See #2)
2. Implement certs so that a newbie cannot have a uber droid, but a high level player can. Let the certs be based on progression in any skill, not JUST combat skills. Perhaps let combat skilled characters have somewhat more powerful droids. But don't limit combat droids to only combat classes. The artisans and entertainers of the world need bodyguards.
3. Give any droid owner the ability to repair his droid at least somewhat. Droids will NOT replace pets if players cannot repair the damage done to them without taking it to a droid engineer to fix. People will just take the easy path and keep their pets that can be healed.
4. Allow DE's to have more than one droid out at a time. Let them have two of any kind out, three at master. If a DE wants to become a combat type then he can. Yes this might create a new kind of CH, where a Master DE, can have 3 uber droids out. But honestly so what? At least it would feel a lot more "Star Wars" to have a "Droid Master" in your group that has the big firepower.
Droid certification chart. I used CL levels, the specific type of droid is not really important, just it's capability.
Novice base skill - CL 7 (60-80 damage, 500 ham, no armor, ranged attack)
Expert base skill - CL 12 (80-100 damage, 900 ham, no armor, ranged attack)
Master base tree line - CL 15 (100-120 damage, 1200 ham, light armor, ranged attack)
Novice Elite skill - CL 18 (120-140 damage, 2000 ham, light armor, ranged and melee attack)
Expert Elite skill - CL 23 (150-200 damage, 3000 ham, Ed armor, ranged and melee attack)
Master Elite skill - CL 26 (200-250 damage, 5000 ham, med armor, ranged and melee attack)
This kind of system would allow any elite master level player to have a roughly Greater Sludge panther type of pet. Which seems to be what most say they need and want.
I am mostly throwing this out there to see how other people feel about this.
This whole argument for combat droids is about one thing and one thing only: power. People who don't have it want it. Folks who are currently crafting-only want to be able to do crafting and fighting. If you want that, play a smuggler. You get to craft spice and slicing equipment and you get combat skills. But the notion that the DE's should get DE only combat droids is just a really bad idea. It's going tolead to a CH style problem.
Hell, I even think that including ANY combat droids is just a really really bad idea. Why? Again, it just creates the reliance on pets. Sure, you can argue "Well, you don't HAVE to use a pet!" but that's not really the point. I don't HAVE to use a gun either. I can run out into the wild and try to fight creatures as a crafter, if I want to. I'm talking about what you'll see as a result of including combat droids, even ones accessible to everyone. You'll see exactly what we saw in the early days of the game with CH's: everyone will have a droid. Anyone here remeber the days before the probot nerf? Everyone had a probot. It doesn't really solve anything. All it does is put money in the DEs' pockets while at the same time screwing up the balance of the game yet again. Personally, I'm fed up with all the surrogate fighting. Pets should be treated as weapons and should require the use of a pet control device that is equipped AS a weapon to use effectively. That's a side issue, though.
The simple fact of the matter is that you guys don't NEED to have combat droids, nor does the rest of the galaxy. What you NEED are more interesting and more useful versions of your EXSITING droids. Droids should be useable to perform automated tasks that the support professions don't have time to or don't want to. I posted a rather long thread about this in this forum detailing 12 ways in which you can make droids more useful and interesting WITHOUT strapping guns to them.
And as for DEs being able to call out more droids than anyone else, why would you want to be able to do that? If you used droids as automatons for the support professions, you'd only be hindering yourselves by doing that. DEs should be able to call as many droids as everyone else, which should be around five at a time, I think, since they wouldn't be combat droids.
Think about it. You could have 3PO units programming load lifters to perform high-function maintenance tasks. You could have the load lifters wandering between energy harvesters and mineral harvesters, feeding maintenance and energy into the various harvesters while people are offline. You could have power droids powering up the various automated droids. You could have repair droids operating droid repair stations in a DE's house while the DE is offline, acting similar to a vendor (providing services for your customers even when you're not there). You could have medical droids running medical stations that would heal people when the medic owner wasn't there to run them (but they'd only work like that for an owner who was a medic). Mouse droids could be used to spy, probots to spy with some defensive/offensive capabilties. Treadwells could be used as jacks of all trades, but with less efficiency than the other more specialized versions. The list goes on.
There are PLENTY of ways to make DE's useful, fun, and interesting, and to make their products valuable to the average customer, much more so than what they are now. You don't have to go down the combat path, and trust me, if SOE does, it'll only create the same problems we have now with CH's, or that we had earlier with probots and CH pets. Trust me. Do not go down the dark path, or forever will it consume your destiny. You'll end up constantly having to fend off criticism and calls for nerfs of a profession that was never intended to be combat oriented. Combat droids are just a bad idea. They'll only serve to screw up balance in the game the way it's been screwed up every time we've seen entities that would fight for you being introduced into the game.
You can't turn DE into a CH clone at this stage in the game. If you don't think that would create serious balance issues, think about it. CH's are currently the most powerful non-pvp combat profession in the game, so assuming some kind of DE clone would be similar, that would make it one of hte strongest profession in the game combat-wise. This would be all well and good, except we also craft the most useful items in the game (yes, I said the most useful, if you don't believe me, look at the stats they posted up, more of the server population needs a droid than needs a gun). With both things in one profession, you're talking about some serious imbalance issues, and it takes less skill points than CH to boot (98 skill points versus 105).
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Look. Stop making the weaponsmith/armorsmith comparison. It's comparing apples and oranges. Do weaponsmiths automatically become master marksmen in real life? No!! Do programmers and engineers who know how to build computers in real life know how to operate them and operate them very well? Yes!! So the weaponsmith argument doesnt hold water because it just isn't translatable to droid engineering. Your objection to DE-only combat droids on the basis of what weaponsmith can and can't do is nonsense.
Can we ask you to do the same thing and stop comapring SWG and reality? Yes, it would make more sense that DE's know how to use their droids,but its not an issue of sense, its an issue of game balance. As I've stated before, droids in this game are essentially items, weapons, things that you use to help you. They do not have a mind of their own (no matter how much it seems like it sometimes...). In this light, a weapon, which is also just an item, a weapon, something you use to help you, is very much the same thing as a droid. Now you can compare combat droids to weapons. So, the day that you agree that the best weapons weaponsmiths can make should only be usable by them is the day I agree to DE only combat droids.
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Ellewen wrote:
I would like combat/crafter mix.
Most people seem to want to do combat with their crafting XP.... It would be cool, yeah. But its not fair towards the other proffesions, and it certainly would un-balance things.
What about this? Every combat droid would get certed like Kaledos said - I've had the same idea but kaledos typed it out nicely for me 
- and DE would get certed for everything they're able to build.
Or, no certs for combat droids at all.
Another idea, for those who are saying that they want something to make them feel special (as thats what I've heard many essentially saying), allow DE's to heal damage on droids similar to medics. This would make you invaluable in combat, but still not cause serious balance issues (assuming DE's weren't certed for any stronger combat droids).
Jenden Morn- Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Leave reality at the loading screen, please.
Need droids that will do some of the grunt work for crafters. Like a droid that you can fill up with credits and waypoints that will go out and maintain your harvestors for you. Of courst they take awhile to reach each one and you would probably have to have one for each area/planet you have harvestors on. Another droid could pick up resources mined. It should look like some kind of cargo vehicle.
I'd like to see a housekeeping droid that wanders around my house vaccuming, dusting, and repairing deteriorated walls. I can load him up with credits and he will keep doing this and keep the house at 100% until the credits are used up. Of course make maintaining your house this way cost slightly more to have a good money drain. I think some would pay the cost for the coolness of it. I want to see a droid up on my roof making repairs some day.
Though not a DE my self I want to see them as a mix. I have a friend who is a master DE and I am a Doc/CM. I feel that they should be more like us, masters at what they make. They should have more of them out at any one time and they should fill ever function, including combat. Basically you would be creating another CH. The DE would be a nice counter to them.
If you create a new class then I would be more inflamed about what I see as the imbalance in the CH. Making CH as the bases for what other classes have to measure up to is the best viable solution. If you nerfed the heck out of CH and added a new class for both, then I would applaud your actions. Other wise just give more to the DE.