Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: What is balance
Haruspex77 wrote:
One major problem with DE is that they really have nothing of valueto any high end characters. Medical and storage droids are neededat the high end, but are acquired much earlier and last forever. Other crafting professions, even smugglers,produce something that "money is no object" players want, though Architects see the eventualend of their market. DE's todayproduce products for newbs only.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Haruspex77 wrote:
Having the full benefits of a crafting profession and near-full benefits of a combat profession jammed into one profession.
I also know it isn't an easy definition: what is yours?
It's the reason why, in the end, the DE Hybrid wouldn't fly (despite a great attempt by both sides to make it happen).
Presumably, that was a negative meaning:" Balance is not having the full benefits...jammed into one profession." And it is something you heard from SOE folks.
In which case SOE is buying into the financially attractive design of requiring that a player have more than one character in order to access all of the content in the game. I had prefered their prior claim that they wanted us to "live in the Star Wars Galaxy" which would have required that one character could eventually see it all. Oh well, the sale of extra accounts must have looked to good to the money men.
What is the appropriate measure for trade off between crafting skills and combat skills? To me they are incomparable except in the rate at which money can be earned. Perhaps they will eventually introduce some content to make the trade off have some more dimension.
In the current situation, they have much more serious balance problems than they think. Non-artisans, or small skillpoint investment ones, are getting rich mining, running large shopping malls, and generally competing well with economy players. The current state of the economy really doesn't justify the skillpoint investment required. Perhaps that is why I have heard about Dev concern about it. Until maxed out combat characters find their credit balance limiting their ability to play at the level they would like, I will not believe balance has been achived.
Now in a separate (slightly off topic for the thread)post, I supported the idea that DE's do not now share in the "full benefits", but that is a separate issue that would be cured if combat droids of decent level were introduced. Right now they are nowhere near 70% of an crafting class.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Having the full benefits of a crafting profession and near-full benefits of a combat profession jammed into one profession.
That makes sense . . . until you look at smugglers.
Haruspex77 wrote:
In the current situation, they have much more serious balance problems than they think. Non-artisans, or small skillpoint investment ones, are getting rich mining, running large shopping malls, and generally competing well with economy players. The current state of the economy really doesn't justify the skillpoint investment required. Perhaps that is why I have heard about Dev concern about it. Until maxed out combat characters find their credit balance limiting their ability to play at the level they would like, I will not believe balance has been achived.
I agree. The focus appears to be on combat balance and I guess that makes sense because it is what people know how to do (it's been done before). But the economy does have serious balance issues and they aren't being addressed. It may be because they don't know about it. But it may be because they just don't know what to do, or don't consider it a priority since most players are into the combat side of the game.
CapnSteve wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Having the full benefits of a crafting profession and near-full benefits of a combat profession jammed into one profession.
That makes sense . . . until you look at smugglers.
Kollos wrote:
Except that Smugglers are neither a full-fledge combat profession nor a full-fledged crafting profession, so it works just fine. I would guess that Smugglers are about 60% crafting and 40% combat
Exactly. So it is possible to have a hybrid profession. And for the record, a master smuggler could both outshoot and outsell a master droid engineer.
balance = no droids in game just creatures
you know... life is much less stressful when you have to give up SWG to focus on work for a while
Well here is a rarity
I apologise to all the posters in this thread, I missed this one completely.
That said, I have put my point elsewhere more lately, but thats no excuse I know.
I needed a rest from the 'snake pit' I guess, it actually makes a pleasant change to play an online game where the developers are engaged with the players. I dont expect to be lauded for this but if anyone has tried WW2Online you would know what I meant. The producers there actually encourages PM's instead of shutting them off. Sure there are a lot of unsatisfied 'demands' but in that game the devs actively seek input, unlike here where apparently they know best. I better say no more on that one eh?
Smugglers aren't Smugglers. We're prostitutes. We have only one worth-while skill; it's sold on the streets and it's illegal (well, no it's not, but the developers tell me it is). It's the only thing I'm valuable to my PA as, and it's the only thing I really find myself doing (as a Smuggler, Droid Engineer aside). 1/4 of my profession is devoted to making ONE spice (Muon Gold, nobody uses the rest), and another 1/4 is wasted on absolutely nothing but PvP/Faction percentage changes, which I can't even see the benefits of since I can't PvP, and can only pull level 10 missions. Dirty fighting gives me shiney specials that without Pistoleer are utterly useless, because they can't hit anything tougher than an Eopie, and the Master Smuggler box has, just like Underworld, NOTHING. There is a %5 bonus to slicing, but it isn't listed.
So, we're not 40% combat. We're 100% idiots for spending over 2 million pistol experience to become a glorified novice marksman. We're not 60% crafters either, because we can't even experiment, and we have only TWO things to sell. Slicing, and Muon Gold; Muon Gold hardly even sells anymore though, thanks to the new (and needed) chef revamp.
So what I'm saying is, Smugglers are just like Droid Engineers. We're only stickin' to our guns because we love what the profession embodies: "Star Wars.". Droids and Scoundrels. Though, Smugglers are a hybrid profession, which means, by some stroke of brilliance, the developers decided they needed to tac on Novice Brawler (15 skill points), and Unarmed Fighting 4 (14 skill points), before we could learn how to shoot someone in the crotch and play dead until someone trots by and saves us.
In a nutshell, Master Smuggler is a waste of skill points unless you're either A) A devout roleplayer or B) Also a Pistoleer.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Hmmm...I guess I'd want to know when you think we are "done". We can't see how far we have to go if we don't set a finish line.
My opinion here is we're getting close to the starting line.
DE atm looks like some sort of pre-alpha computer software.
It'll be done when people use droids.
So when droid will be usefull.
Dirty fighting has some excellent moves, even if you need better accuracy. And even if you don't like spice, you could make plenty of money selling faction and slicing. I've probably made a few 100k by selling clamps to other smugglers. My profit margin on those is much higher than anything in DE.
Auladan wrote:
So, we're not 40% combat. We're 100% idiots for spending over 2 million pistol experience to become a glorified novice marksman. We're not 60% crafters either, because we can't even experiment, and we have only TWO things to sell. Slicing, and Muon Gold; Muon Gold hardly even sells anymore though, thanks to the new (and needed) chef revamp.