Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Why the devs are wrong that giving combat droids to everyone (with certifications) is unbalancing
Oh wait, you people dont want reason and logic, you just want more power without paying for it.
While you wrote some nice poetry
, if you substitute the words "armor", "buffs", "spice" or "better weapons", it's the same poem.
Daker, you're also skipping out on a key part of your math there. Current droid armor is 40% resists yes, but its MEDIUM armor. This reduces the damage by (I believe, never been to great with the armor calculations) an additional 75%.
On a side thought, would you have any problems with everyone running around with CL20 creatures?
Jenden wrote:
Daker, you're also skipping out on a key part of your math there. Current droid armor is 40% resists yes, but its MEDIUM armor. This reduces the damage by (I believe, never been to great with the armor calculations) an additional 75%.
Oops, yeah I did leave it out...I think the difference of medium is only 25% above player light armor (like composite), so the difference is there, but still not determinitive. (13k player ham vs. 4k pet ham still = not good tank)
Yes, but not because of the level. Now CL20 creatures are 2000 HAM (yes they can be bioengineered above that, but devs are still trying to nerf that), so they are no longer overpowering. I have a real problem with people running around with creature pets period (very unstarwarsy). I have no such problems with droids
On a side thought, would you have any problems with everyone running around with CL20 creatures?
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Ok...what about the average 1000 HAM player with light armor 50% composite and damage mitigation 3?
GnomeAd wrote:
The way armor works is that you get a 50% reduction in damage per level assuming that the device inflicting the damage doesn't have any AP. Medium armor results in a 75% over all reduction, then the 40% resists to everything kicks in. Assuming a hit for 100 points, the armor alone drops it to 25, then the 40% resist drops it down to 14.4. You're looking at about an 85% total damage reduction or almost the same as heavy armor which is about 87%. If my math is right, this makes the average 800 HAM probot really have about 1480.
Ok...what about the average 1000 HAM player with light armor 50% composite and damage mitigation 3?
Daker-Naritus wrote:
GnomeAd wrote:
The way armor works is that you get a 50% reduction in damage per level assuming that the device inflicting the damage doesn't have any AP. Medium armor results in a 75% over all reduction, then the 40% resists to everything kicks in. Assuming a hit for 100 points, the armor alone drops it to 25, then the 40% resist drops it down to 14.4. You're looking at about an 85% total damage reduction or almost the same as heavy armor which is about 87%. If my math is right, this makes the average 800 HAM probot really have about 1480.
Ok...what about the average 1000 HAM player with light armor 50% composite and damage mitigation 3?
There are a number of variables that make this difficult to answer. A person in armor (all PC armor is light) that gets with an AP0 weapon would have the damage reduced by 50% for the armor then a further 50% for the resists.
However remember that if the AP of the weapon is greater than the AR then a different calculation is used. You get a 25% damage increase for each level above the AP is over the AR. So someone in armor would take a 125% damage from an AP2 weapon. While someone in no armor would take 156% damage. Resists kick in after damage increase/decrease due to AP vs AR.
You can't really factor in damage mitigation because it isn't an overall reduction. It reduces the top end of the damage. So how much it reduces depends on what is hitting. For example, if someone with Mitigation 3 gets hit by a weapon that does 100-1000 damage. You don't reduce the damage by 80%, you reduce the range of the damage, which in this case is 900 by 80%. So the weapon would do 100-180 damage. That may seem like a big decrease, but as it's only a reduction in max damage, the closer the min/max the lower the reduction. If the damage had been 100-200 then it would reduce to 100-120. As MOB damage has very little spread mitigation has much less effect in those cases. As we don't know the damage min/max for the example it's to large of a variable to include.
First let me say I'm not a DE. But I've been holding out from getting a pet because I want a droid. Not a large cat.
When I first heard about the Droid Invasion I was rather excited, now I'm dissappointed.
A cert system is the way to go in my opinion and here is why.
Droids are NOT creatures. They are programmed and have to do what they are programmed to do. A creature has a mind of its own and can for various reasons decide not to do what you tell it. Even a domesticated animal like a dog doesn't always listen. And I've yet to meet a cat that will. 
Which is why we have CH, to tame and control these hard to control creatures. You can't walk into a lion cage and expect the lion to listen to you.
A droid however is a machine. My computer does what it's told. It may breakdown or get a vrius, but if I tell it to open a program it does. It doesn't decide it doesn't feel like doing so and tell me to bugger off.
I envisioned a system where a droid cert was available to all at certain levels. Lets say Combat Droid A is at novice at all elite professions. This gives everyone a basic combat droid. The combat classes would gain additional certs higher up. Say Combat B at Specials III and Combat C at Master. Non-combat classes wouldn't need these higher end combat droids. They would get profession specifc higher level droids. So an Entertainer would get Entertainer B and at Master get C. The details of what they would do is open.
I'd even get more specific with the combat droids. Instead of Combat B lets say the BH get BH droid B. Which would have abilities specific to helping the BH. A Smuggler would get Smuggler B, etc.
Stacking wouldn't be an issue. How does one stack certs? If the limit is one combat droid out per person then there is no issue. Sure I can be multiple professions that allow me access to more droids. But if the various droids are balanced it would only make me more versatile, not overpowered.
What about the effect on PvE combat? Well MOBs were recently boosted. There are some other changes that are coming out the nerf the players ability to compete with MOBs (bleed nerf for example). There is also the whole new combat system coming out. So it shouldn't be that difficult to take this into account and adjust accordingly.
With the last CH change what has happened to pets? I've seen a dramatic decrease in their use. CL10 pets are pretty much worthless for combat so serve no real purpose. If the new Droid Handler profession is just a copy of CH how many people would actually take it up? Those that want tank pets pretty much already have CH. So why would they change to DH? It would take them some work to grind up to where they currently are just to have pets with the same abilities as those they had at CH. Those that don't have CH aren't likely to take up DH. If they have not needed or wanted pet tanks in the past why would they take up a profession that is the same as CH but with different pets?
For my suggestion about certs to work as listed above non-combat droids would have to be made of course. I'm sure you guys/gals have come up with ideas for those non-combat droids so I don't think I have to include them here. But giving everyone the basic combat droid evens it out. If they want a higher level combat droid they need to take a combat profession. A basic model would suffice in most situations where a non-combat player would find themselves.
This would increase DE usefulness many fold. A large population that had access to droids. Profession specific droids or modules.
The only real problem would probably be the CHs saying that their niche of pet tanks was taken away with the certs being made available to everyone. Which is a valid concern. As such combat droids would have to be designed in such a way as to make them less effective than an equivelant level creature. Or limit the droid levels to lower level than creatures. Of course you could also add CL bonus in the DE. So they would get the higher level or more droids out (in a fashion similar to CH). This would be limited to DE's and not available to the general public.