Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: New ideas to get us thinking more positively... For SOE & community consideration
frunk wrote:
I am not worried about undermining the BE/CH classes, its just to be different from them. That way they can feel unique and DE's can feel unique too.
If we have a droid that acts & does what a large creature does but looks different then there is no point.
Yes there IS a point - they're DROIDS!
If someone wants to use a droid instead of a creature, let them do it.
Perhaps droids have less firepower but more armor. So what.
At least it's more 'Star Warsy' than a bunch of rancors running around.
So a way to combine the Droid Handle class, less powerful droids and Star Wars may be as follows...
In the movies, if you wanted a powerful droid, you just build lots of less powerful ones. And this is where the "Droid Handler" - (Ugh! hate the name). Could come in to play properly. They would have the ability to command a small army of droids and use those features like "wedge formation" to do something useful! Droids gunned down would be dead, coupled with a DE rubbing their greedy hands in anticipation
As long as things are balanced it doesn't matter how you do it.
If you can have 1 CL30 pet out, or 2 CL15 pets out, assuming CL15 is 1/2 the strength of CL30, then everything will work fine.
The old CH skills with Max Pet Levels, which was the total of all CL you could have out at one time did that - it was a self-balancing mechanism. But they ditched all that to simplify everything. Now all you have is Max Level Of Pet and Max Called skills.
Therefore you get the Star Warsy feel without the need for "bigness".
frunk wrote:
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Okay we have a multiway split on how to proceed based on the number of constraints:
- Keep it Star Warsy (droids everywhere, doing everything)
- Maintain game balance
- Make sure every class feels unique
- Try to keep the game interesting (no BH clones)
- Not too complex to implement to keep development costs down
An observation from the movies:
Droids are everywhere, they do many things but they are not that powerful compared to creatures. Yes, the occasional one can go toe-to-toe with a Jedi but these have passed by like the Jedi by the time this game is set (Episode 4.5) When you needed truly powerful killer generally the reliance was on vehicles (AT-AT’s) and creatures (Rancor, Sarlac, etc).
I think that there are manydroids at different levels that could equal different level creatures.
They never pit all the different droids against different creatures in any movie, but just from the apparent fire power observed, they looked as if they could be equal.
So therefore I think the concept of powerful combat droids is a dead idea. Certainly they should be more powerful that what we have now, but always less powerful that the major CH ones. Otherwise we start to undermine the CH/BE class combo.
It's not about undermining the CH or BE profession, and I'm not really worried about it.
It's about the choices available to the player.
If a player wants to use a CL 30 creature, or a CL 30 combat droid, it's their choice.
There's NO reason we can't have droids as powerful as creatures.
In fact, there are numerous reasons why there could be droids MORE powerful than creatures.
But that's not even what I'm looking for. Just equality.
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The current droid implementation is a good start, they are versatile and if this was fixed would serve as a good basis to build from. I would never use a crafting station in a droid as its “average” – I would use always use a terminal. Market killed for DE. Therefore fix it and add other similar functions like the ability to add survey tools, other crafting stations… droids can build buildings!
DE tests of droid crafting stations has proven that they are comparable, perhaps even better than, private crafting stations. I just wish droid stations could be experimented on to offer the same range of ratings stationary stations have, and that they used the same rating system.
A larger variety of modules tied to almost every profession and skill is sorely needed to increase droid utility.
Then do the survey droid – although this may be complex to do.
A simpler alternative would be to allow DEs to build a semi-autonomous survey platform, which is just a vehicle you can survey from and can be told to automatically “/follow” to the highest waypoint currently surveyed. You hit survey – it automatically heads towards the waypoint created. Great way of covering large areas and sure seller!
Maybe not all that complicated. One idea was to set a destination waypoint on the planetary map and then give the command for the droid to go to that waypoint.
Upon completion you could pull up a modified planetary map that showed blue-red/low-high color coding along the droid's path. You could then go to the high concentrations and survey the areas for yourself.
Simpler to implement, not too overpowering, yet time saving and simple to use.
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Now back to combat droids. Each player has an effective “level” – that can we ascertained by their current skill set. Make this the certification to use a droid of that level (plus or minus a bit to keep balance with CH’s, etc). Therefore everyone can use a droid of their level and there will be a good buyer/seller market as people upgrade or downgrade. Even better if you say the droid certification is an Imperial edict to maintain control of powerful droids (i.e. like gun control law) and only leave them in the hands of those needing it for their line of work. I.e. Powerful bounty hunters = powerful droids. Novice Architects = less powerful droids.
No need for a hard certification path which could be abused more easily.
Sounds a little complicated to design and balance. As well as explain to players.
A vague "effective level.....ascertained by their current skill set"?
'Hard' certifications would be simpler to implement and use. And would fall more in line with the way the current systems works.
Okay now lets truly “blue sky” this concept a bit further – allow anyone to pull out any level of droid but if they pull out a droid of higher level they have immediately broken the law and become TEF’d to any Imperial wandering by (PC or NPC) as they are now openly using an illegal droid. This would happen even if you were Imperial Faction and would loose faction pointed by dying just like the rest.
Sounds interesting
This could fit in with the GCW and allow the developers to rebalance the “rebel swing” by the Imperial Laws being played slightly loosely with Imperial fractioned characters by letting them off with droids a few levels above what is normally allowed. An easily tweakable variable that would give the Imperials the edge and encourage more people to take Imperial status. (Not me though… I am a Rebel to the core and as such I think we should take these knocks every now and again)
More variety is good.
Although Imps already have AT-AT's and AT-ST's and Stromtroopers, etc.
Might encourage more people to join Imperial, but what about PvP/PvE balance?
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Longer term I would look to be able to make droid use macros like we can (with a few extra commands). So you could have a droid take care of your harvesters with something like:
/gotoCoordinates ####,####; ; WP of my harvester
/selectObject ##; ; my harvester object ID
/addpower ##; ; known command
/pause 1; ; known command
/depositmaintenance ##; ; known command
/pause 1; ; known command
/structurestatus mail; ; command enhanced to mail status to owner
/gotoCoordinates ####,####; ; WP of home garage
/mail “Job Complete” ; send a mail back to owner
/shutdown ; Droid goes into standby for pickup
Then that whole brain/advanced brain/quality thing comes into play – the number of commands it can hold. Can just see the market: 92% experimented advanced droid brains for sale (can hold 20 command macros). Perhaps “droid brains” could do simple steps and “advanced droid brains” can do “loops” and “if/then’s” within the macro language
If droids get stuck, then buy a better pathing algorithm or cheat… “if stationary for 5 mins teleport 100m closer”.
If this is going to lead to major server headaches then cheat the whole journey… let the client see the droid leave then just return them 30 mins later (dependent upon the quality of that drive system) once they have done the job.
I would LOVE to program droids with simple macros.
We could even preprogram them with useful macros as an excellent selling point!
If ONLY we could sell droid PCD's!!!
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And the break for DE’s? Just allow them to control more droids at any one time including combat droids. As they are Master DE’s and this is regarded as a crafting class their droids will be not that powerful compared to the uber droids they make for other people who have “imperial certification to use level 39 droids”.
I'm all for DE being able to call more droids.
We need this to function, not just to fight.
But I KNOW the devs will have an issue with more combat pets being out.
All players, no matter their profession, should only be allowed to have a certain number of combat pets out for balance.
Just a few ideas, hopefully some of them will be appreciated.
Some good ideas!
Anyone else have any?
And one last thing… For gods sake, if you do go ahead with a Droid Handler class DO NOT CALL IT “Droid Handler”. Droids do not need handlers, they need “operators” or “controllers”!
Definately!
Frunk
COO – TentaGills Strip Mining Inc.
Phoenix Legion PA (Rebel and proud)
Citizen of Asylum, Naboo, Eclipse
Master DE, Master Artisan, part time Rifleman, Scout & Merchant
O-Jen wrote:
I like the idea of allowing high level combat droids for everyone, but making them contraband. Perhaps even make it so Master DEs can't make the high level combat droids UNTIL they get a certain standing in either rebel or imperial faction. That might be commensurate with access to certain required high-level parts. Heck, if you want to limit the number of uber-droids in the game then limit the quantity of some part awarded by making it faction-point expensive and make that part necessary to make the droid.
After all, when's the last time you went to Home Depot and got a sidewinder missile to put on your LEGO MINDSTORMS dork-bot? To do something like that you'd need serious military (or alternately highly evil) connections.
Barfalomue wrote:
Just one comment... We are all worried about undermining the CH/BE class.... Well, how long have the rest of us been undermined by their profession???
Personally, I'm not concerned with undermining anyone else's profession.
Or revenge for the past.
I really don't think that will happen.
I don't want droids superior to creatures. The devs would probably never allow that anyway.
I just want droids that are comparable to creatures.
I just want equality.
There's nothing imbalancing about that.
Frunk if you really want TH to see this thread you need to post it somewhere else. They hardly ever read the profession forums.
Handsome fish!! Aww shucks! Thanks.
I have posted this on the new a "Droid Invasion - In Development" forum. And extended it out after some of the comments recieved.
Thanks for the feedback folks - its really encouraging.
If you want to follow its progress and perhaps rate the message highly in a hope it gets read then its at:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=21175&page=11
Ta,
Frunk