Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: A Droid Cert System That Works
Droid_Engineer_Rho wrote:
TH,
Someone else posted something I thought was a rather nice fix for this:
If controlling powerful droids necessitated that the user was wielding not a weapon, but a droid control device of some sort, this problem would be VASTLY reduced.
Except that if you are a combatant, you want to do your own fighting, or you would never have been a combat profession in the first place. And if you are a non-combatant, this limitation is irrelevant.
droids should enhance our abilities and everyday life.
be there for menial labor. IE program them to put ingredients into schematics for us.
droids should help keep track of information and help slice computer nets and allow access to "offlimits areas"
aid in navigation, starship repair, ship targeting.
be mobile storage.
help harvest animals we kill.
mobile bots that can navigate a route and take samples of the resources and keep track of their locations.
wear down over time and need new parts.
components should be swappable by DE.
special arenas for DE to use "combat" bots in gladatorial games against other DE. he/she who makes the best bot wins. the player controls the bots actions and attacks. prizes given for the winners of week to month long tournies with superbowls of droid battles.
the one THING droids should NOT be is frontline creature combatants the way CH animals already trivialize combat. there are lots of ways to do it that do NOT involve hunting. think outside the way things are always done.
Thunderheart wrote:
When the majority of players aquire these droids (because they will - - most everyone wants to do better in combat),all player ability will rise, which means the entire creature and NPC system has to be dramtically increased to account for all of the extra player power.
What would ensue is a month or two of all players walking through all missions and mobs with little or no resistance (because of the advantage and making the game world a "battle bots" place) followed by a big nerf (which we know everyone loves) and then we are back to having what should be powerful combat droids nerfed into submission orthe game would have to be completely re-balanced withhigher MOB combat numbers, which makes the game world extremely hostile.
Thunderheart wrote:
If you give players the option to have powerful combat droids, most players will take them becausemost players want to have an advantage in combat.
When the majority of players aquire these droids (because they will - - most everyone wants to do better in combat),all player ability will rise, which means the entire creature and NPC system has to be dramtically increased to account for all of the extra player power.
TH keeps missing the obvious. If the droid certification is based on Artisan (or possibly Entertainer) classes, the combatpower of "uber" characters will not rise at all, because those classes require far to many skillpoints without offering any combat benefits.
It will, however, allow players with many hundreds of hours of playtime in those classes to be able to participate in all aspects of the game without dropping them. It will also put droids in the hands of enough characters to have them a visible part of the game.
Thunderheart wrote:
Whenever you consider adding this much power to a game world, you have to consider how the whole environment will be effected.
As do you... Please practice what you are preaching!
Please explain how a CL15-20 droid is unbalancing to a Master TKA/Master Pistoleer/Smuggler who can do WELL over 1000 damage per second and has 80% damage mitigation to BOTH ranged and melee, can wear 50% composite armor, and many resistances to attacks like dodge, melee toughness, etc.
There is nothing you can say that will change their minds on this...nothing. They have the whole combat/balance scenario worked out now. The only thing they would accept is the creation of a carbon copy of the CH code with minor cosmetic changes to use the droid skins...and this is what they accepted.
These forums now just exist as 'an opiate of the masses' to keep us calmed down. All the alternate ideas have about as much use as an ash tray on a swoop's handlebars.
Incorrect.
The player will LOSE overall power from spending skill points, then GAIN power from the droid. It will balance.
You know, at first I thought you were a little confused, but then I reread the original post, realized I was the confused one. I didn't read the original post closely enough, and now I kind of suspect Thunderheart may not have either.
This proposal is an excellent compromise, and is actually more restrictive on droid availability than just a straight-up Droid Handler profession, since it requires you to reach certain levels of other elite professions before you're given the opportunity to spend even more skill points to add droids on top of your existing combat skills.
Look at it this way: Rather than an entire DH Profession, have only one branch, four boxes, something like this (darn it, I had made up a nice little table, but it won't let me post it):
Droid Warrior
Cert: Juggernaut Droids, Droid Tactics +25, Cmd: /droidcharge
Prereqs -- Droid Strategist, Cert: Droid Warrior Option, 15 SP
Droid Strategist
Cert: Heavy Combat Droids, Droid Tactics +20, Cmd: /droidmelee
Prereqs -- Droid Fighter, Cert: Droid Strategist Option, 10 SP
Droid Fighter
Cert: Medium Combat Droids, Droid Tactics +15, Cmd: /droidrange
Prereqs -- Droid Handler, Cert: Droid Fighter Option, 6 SP
Droid Handler
Cert: Light Combat Droids, Droid Tactics +25, Cmd: /droidguard
Prereqs -- Cert: Droid Handler Option, 3 SP
34 skill points is not a trivial investment. It's half a profession. The way to balance this afterwards is not to nerf the droids or raise the skill point costs, because you have a more effective and easier to implement gate on availability in that you have control of which other professional skill boxes get the "option" certs. If people are flocking to Pistoleer because it's easy to build an overpowered Pistoleer/Droid combo, then bump the cert levels up the tree. Thus you've got to be more invested in Pistoleer to get the same droid certification options, and likely you'd no longer be able to get Juggernaut certifications at all in that tree, because the cert gets bumped clear off the tree. That would make people rethink their character choices and make tradeoffs, which is what you want. You'd have to choose to be a droid handler instead of dabbling in Scout to get terrain negotiation and /maskscent, for instance.
The Light Droids (maybe CL15 instead of CL10) would be available to almost everyone, but still not everyone. Newbies wouldn't get them, most importantly. The skill point cost would be low, but so would the power. The point cost for subsequent levels goes up greatly, on top of the cost of getting to a profession level that gives you access to those droids. The major adjustments would involve making sure that the points you'd spend on droids would gain you power roughly in line with the benefits you might get spending those points elsewhere.
I dunno, I think with a little polish, this could be made to work.
TH, this is a very well thought out post and it does cover the balance issue. Maybe you should reread it.
*pauses for him to go reread post*
There. This is what the players want. It's a great idea. You can't always have balance, you have to have some edge or another, that's why there are different professions. A Master Creature Handler with a level 70 tank is not balanced against a Master Pistoleer, they each have certain advantages and disadvantages. All I hear from you is "nope, can't give people cool droids because then everything would be out of balance". But this system keeps you from having uber droids for free. It makes you pay for them with your skill points, thus balancing it out. Please, rethink your approach, it's really negative these days and I fear this droid patch isn't going to make any of the players happy.
So what if some of the missions are too easy for a person with an uber droid? Right now they're too easy for people with a uber rancor, or a master of any of the combat professions. Don't balance things against the missions, but the game as a whole, or you'll miss the big picture.
darknacht wrote:
There is nothing you can say that will change their minds on this...nothing. They have the whole combat/balance scenario worked out now. The only thing they would accept is the creation of a carbon copy of the CH code with minor cosmetic changes to use the droid skins...and this is what they accepted.
These forums now just exist as 'an opiate of the masses' to keep us calmed down. All the alternate ideas have about as much use as an ash tray on a swoop's handlebars.
Yep, this is exactly the case, I have come to believe.
It is the absolute minimum path to get to a position where they can't be accused of not delivering on a promised feature. A promise that I now believe they wish they never made.
CH is already more or less balanced for both PvE and PvP. And if you don't just copy it straight across you will get a situation where one of the now two pet handler professions is superior to the other and everybody will run to it like passengers to the stern of the Titanic.
So folks.. look around at your fellow BEs. .. Opps... DEs and hope and pray that experimentation for combat effectiveness is included at the outset because if it's not, DM or DH or DT or whatever politically correct tag for the class is today will be an non-starter and we are likely to have our very own Kimogillas to decorate our homes with.
I think its pretty obvious that no matter how well its presented they already have the dh profession coded and its going live.
But thanks to the de community for the months of wonderful ideas that we never bothered to read 
