Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Post-CU Droid Engineer (AKA I'm not asking for FREE COOKIES TH!)
JavelinCatcher wrote:
darkmane wrote:
Ok, so the CU is coming. I kind of like it, I won't be a Novice TKM anymore but that is ok. I'm starting to think of what DE should be like afterwards.
So here is my idea, not a lot of detail yet, but the general idea is solid.
So first we move DE to be off of Master Artisan rather than Engineering 4. This increases our cost, but we've been dependant of MA so long most of us are already. This will increase our cost above that of almost all of the CU professions, the only one DEs won't cost more skillpoints than is Ranger, which includes no specials, weapons certs or armor certs from what I've heard.
Why should we let this happen? More powerful Combat Droids, more droids out at once. Finally a power droid capable of powering OUR droids.
We've basically accepted the creation of the Droid Commander profession. I'm still not a fan of it, why shouldn't DEs be the Droid Commanders? I'm not asking for parity with CHs, I know that being a crafting profession and not having to spend time "raising" the creatures gives us some advantages, so we should cost more SP than they do. I don't think we should get health bonuses like any of the CU professions unless CHs start to get that bonus.
Anyway, I know that we've discussed this ad nauseum, but we're losing non combat functionality with the CU, it will probably be easier for the Devs to give us more combat functionality than more non combat. There are changes coming, I'd prefer to have non-combattant content as rich and deep as combattant content, but I doubt that will be a reality in ANY MMORPG in the near future.
Comparing us to Rangers or even Creature Handler's is a apples to oranges comparison. They are certed for armor as well. They deal directly with combat; we deal directly with customers....there is a difference. You would have a better argument saying we should become a hybrid crafter-combatant (requiring a novice and a tree of a basic combat profession).Even then, is that the direction we as a community want to go? If you look at the latest "Where do you want to see our profession?" poll, most of us have well thought out posts describing how we want to see droids usefull to the general populous and not a "Droid Commander"
The frustrations that you are seeing apply to all crafting professions (and even entertainers). We should not be a exception to the rule. Instead,we should focus on getting the rules changed for all non-combat professions.
(FYI: The quote was, "No free checkers" being appliedsuch that one player had more checkers than another in a game of checkers ...not cookies)
Message Edited by JavelinCatcher on 04-19-2005 07:01 PM
darkmane wrote:
I disagree, I think you remember similar ideas being floated during the Droid Invasion/Droid Revamp and the only response we got (repeatedly) was "No Free checkers". Ifno skill points are being spent, the Devs won't go for it. It would be too simple for someone to use pilot to grind FP and get Major then instantly be on parity with what ever level droid they can get. Even if you limit it to faction targets I doubt very much the Devs would go for it.
Actually, it has been mentioned a few times by the DEV team, in the not too distant past, that they were looking into adding droids with the GCW.
Skill point use was only a part of the reason behind the 'No'. The DEVs didn't want to add in combatdroids that anyone could use, fresh out of the box.
Something else to keep in mind... The 'No Free checkers' was during an era when combat was completely out of balance. With the CU currently in testing, that imbalance is no longer there, with the exception of AT-STs. Take into consideration the changes made to how Weapons and Stims are now going to 'certed' for anyone with a certain combat level. With these changes coming into play, I think that the era of 'No free checkers' is no longer relevant to the concept of making the game 'More Star Warsy and fun to play'.
Drashk wrote:
Something else to keep in mind... The 'No Free checkers' was during an era when combat was completely out of balance. With the CU currently in testing, that imbalance is no longer there, with the exception of AT-STs. Take into consideration the changes made to how Weapons and Stims are now going to 'certed' for anyone with a certain combat level. With these changes coming into play, I think that the era of 'No free checkers' is no longer relevant to the concept of making the game 'More Star Warsy and fun to play'.
darkmane wrote:
I saw that discussion, while that is an interesting idea, it actually reduces the effectiveness of the character. The character only has his full 250 SP when he has the droid out, so his average skill points is R + (N * A) Where R is the remaining skillpoints, N is the number commited to the droid and A is the %age of time the droid is out. Plus it would be a total departure from the mechanics of the current system, which greatly increases the time to develop it.
So this leaves either adding a DC profession, or coming up with some other way for people to control such droids. A DC profession is a lot of work.
They wont just "give" droids to people because they are getting extra power with no cost. Everything in the game would need to be balanced to assume that people had such droids. Some people don't want to control droids or pets, this would leave them at a disadvantage.
Letting people spend skill points to control higher level droids wouldn't weaken players any more then them going CH does now. Their weapons are simply pets, the droids would be the same way. If you spent 20 points on your Droid, then you get 20 points of combat power, what you lose as a toon is made up with the droid.
This actually involves a lot less "work" then Dc proposals and others as well. Very little is done from the character side, an interface for fgiving skill points is all that would be needed. All that would need done is droids of the proper levels would need created to fit those skill points.