Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Jahr's Combat Droid Proposal (A new direction!)
sorry, but you have just now told me that you will use the droid to do exactly the thing that the dev's have said they don't want you to be able to do: use it to solo mob's that are higher than your combat level.
THJahar wrote:
Ahh but in life everything is not constant.
I for one spent tonight soloing some imp missions.
Now with my 'Powered droid' I would have pulled my droid out and dialled it down, for an extra little help.
But I stare longingly over my shoulder at a spawn of force crystal hunters. I can't take them by myself but I store my dialled down droid and pull my Dialled up droid and attack!Now you maybe wondering that I've just unbalanced the game, but no...luckily the AI of the MOB means that it will switch targets every now and again, or spam multi target shots. If i was a n00b i'd be dead but because i'm mid-level combat i'm gonna just about scrape through.
People will invariable set a level for their day to day droid but use a dialled up droid for those special occasions...it is no more or less than the equivalent of getting buffed by a master doctor. And let's face even n00bs can have 3K HAMS nice average composite and the best pistol in the game after just a couple ofweeks playing.
Malitevv wrote:I'm only evaluating this within the context of what we have been told the boundaries are regarding combat droids. If it only costs you a few thousand credits for you to use the high level combat droid then from a balance perspective that is no different than make that higher level combat droid free.Like I said, you are proposing that by makingdroids into money sinks you are going to magically make all the dev's concerns about combat droids disappear. It aint doesn't work that way. A money sink is not a way to balance combat abilities. In terms of combat balance, you have to assume that money is effectively free, because any player can easily get money with no effort whatsoever by just asking a rich player for it.I'm not argueing whether the developers notion of balance for combat droids is right or wrong. I am merely pointing out that your proposal does not address the balance issue as it has been laid before usunless you make it so extraordinarily expensive that its effectively useless to almost everyone.
I dunno you keep on countering that there are these mythical players that lavish millions of creds on their friends.
In whatever game you play there is going to be people who try to exploit.
You also stress that I'll be making it too expensive for players to use the droids. I'm not, I'll make it too expensive to use the droids at their maximum level for an extended period of time. just as you don't wander round buffed 24/7 because it would cost you a fortune in doc fees.
I think this is a clever idea, but unfortunately it really isn't balanced.
This idea ramps up the potential combat power of all classes, which dramatically changes the PvE environment. It doesn't matter that players would have to pay credits to gain this increased combat ability - this would still tilt the PvE paradigm strongly in favor of the players.
that is a problem that worries me sometimes when I think about it.... the problem being PvE vs. PvP. The two have completely different needs in terms of balance and I'm not sure it is possible to balance them both simultaneously.
But on the subject of >CL10 pets. I don't see this specifically as PvP vs. PvE issue because even now, the highest level CH pets in the game are useless in PvP. How,given thatthe best CH pets in the game are useless in PvP now, could the question of >CL10 droids be a PvE vs. PvP issue?
THJahar wrote:
I'll make it too expensive to use the droids at their maximum level for an extended period of time. just as you don't wander round buffed 24/7 because it would cost you a fortune in doc fees.
Malitevv wrote:
But on the subject of >CL10 pets. I don't see this specifically as PvP vs. PvE issue because even now, the highest level CH pets in the game are useless in PvP. How,given thatthe best CH pets in the game are useless in PvP now, could the question of >CL10 droids be a PvE vs. PvP issue?
Kollos wrote:
I don't think that it is a PvE vs PvP issue. I think it's just a PvE issue.
One of the cornerstones of what we (meaning Droid Engineers) keep asking for is that everyone be allowed to use the droids we make, including the combat droids. If you suddenly give everyone a PvE boost (which, as you point out, is all that pets are good for right now) then PvE gets thrown out of whack.
I can also see it being a PvP issue, but for that to be true you'd have to believe that pets, or at least combat droids specifically, are useful in PvP.
I see. I misunderstood. I thought that singling it out as a PvE issue meant you believed there to besome counterpoint (i.e., PvP). As I understand you now, you are rephrasing the infamous "free checkers" analogy (without the analogy) by saying that the issue is that increasing the combat levels of the players means they will be more powerful than the environment currently assumes them to be. I agree. That is the whole point, as the dev's have put it forward.
On that point, which is unrelated to the proposal in this thread, the question of doctor buff's is a good one. I started up a newbie character the other day, got a set of high level combat buffs and soloed mobs that would have dropped mevery quicklywithout the buffs for close to an hour withoutneeding asingle heal and never the least concern for the possiblity that I might die. It was a completely different game for me doing this the second time around than it was the first time around when I did my novice professions without buffs with my first character.
I guess the difference there is that the doc buff's are passive. They increase my ability to survive dramatically, but they donot raise the bar much in terms of what sort of mobs I can attack because they don't increase the raw damage numbers (they increase the time overwhich I can deal damage but don't increase the ratio of damage dealt as a function of time by much). Is that the difference between doctory buffs and high level pets I wonder?
Malitevv wrote:
I guess the difference there is that the doc buff's are passive. They increase my ability to survive dramatically, but they donot raise the bar much in terms of what sort of mobs I can attack because they don't increase the raw damage numbers (they increase the time overwhich I can deal damage but don't increase the ratio of damage dealt as a function of time by much). Is that the difference between doctory buffs and high level pets I wonder?
It's certainly an imaginative idea, I have to hand it to you. We need more out-of-the-box thinking like this. That said there are a few problems that I think make this particular idea unworkable:
1. Money as a limiting factor. People have already pointed out problems with this. There are players out there that have more money than they know what to do with but the majority of players have far less. Trying to balance the costs of droid fuel will likely prove extremely difficult if not impossible. Take a look at SOE's track record on balance and see if you really want to go there.
2. Convenience. Only allowing Droid Engineers to dial-up the engine means that people will have to seek out said Droid Engineer frequently. If the DE can dial up the droids 'in-the-field' then the droids will be too powerful (all large hunting parties will contain a Droid Engineer). If the DE can only dial up droids in a 'droid garage' then players will quickly get tired of having to visit said 'droid garage', will become frustrated with combat droids and will return to creature pets.
3. The lack of skill point cost complicates addition of new high-end content. New dungeons have to be balanced so that they are not easy to complete with a team that can afford high-end combat droids and are not impossible to complete with a competent combat squad that can't afford to-of-the-line combat droids.
EnigmaBSc
Dunno about his as it seems to me that it is exactly the same as the situation with docs at the moment - on chalistra, everyone goes to coronet to charge themselves up on buffs to go off an hunt for a couple of hours.
Sorry, NO! While it is a clever idea and does have some balance to it - the whole point the devs are making (as well as some players) is that not every player should be allowed to have an UBER pet. Your idea makes this possible. So it will never work within the game the way the DEV's invision their game. The whole idea behind the DC profession was the DEV's trying to give us what we wanted. What the failed to say was that was the only way we could get it. Had they stated from the begining that everyone being able to control a CL>13 droid was not an option - i think much of this debate could have been avoided.
Besides do we really want it back like it was in the very begining when EVERYONE could use RANCORS???? I know i don't, but maybe i'm just weird like that.