Droid Engineer Archive

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Zalypsis wrote:

The only problem I see with being able to call a droid in combat is possible griefing. For instance, a bounty hunter could load 5 mega R3 bomb droids into his datapad, walk up to a jedi, start attacking, pull first droid out, BOOM. Jedi starts to heal, another droid out, BOOM. Now he's like "what the crap??" /spamheal. BOOM, BOOM, uh ohhhh...........BOOM. Then he just dies, not really that much of a fair fight, and then again the BH did spend way too much money to win that duel (unless his alt is a DE, *wink*).

Maybe if the devs could make it so there is an invisible PVP Tef that players get when in combat with another player that prevents droids being called during combat, so that you can't grief, but could still call them during regular PvE combat. And yes...I'm aware you can still "Ready Droid Unit" during combat, but that's way too much trouble for some people to bother griefing with...

Also, as far as the whole XP reduction thing...it has been a long time since I've tried to even earn XP (not much of a tempchanger I suppose), but I can see your point of view that it would discourage knowledgable younglings from using droids in their grinding. Then again, how many true noobs do you know that are aware driods reduce your xp lol? Anyways, everyone needs to chill a little on that topic. Yes, it's a valid point, and yes, it may be a bit too much to say that it alone kills the market for combat droids. It may inhibit it, but there are certainly tons of people out there that can still greatly benefit from these droids.

I'm looking forward to what I like to call the DERV (hope no one has stolen that yet.) Hopefully they will add a tooon of different ways combat droids can be used in combat to make our market thrive and our pocketbooks soar. In the meantime...make componets you guys

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The thing is that you can already do that trick with Detonation droids. You just call the droid out of a crate and it puts it right into the game. The catch is that it wont accept a destruct command for about 10 seconds. You would just need to keep that part in.

So basically, yes a Bh could keep pulling bomb droids, but the Jedi would get a 10 second window on each to blow them up first.

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Lamgwin wrote:

Atan, you don't get to tell me what to talk about. How about that?

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Ah, but SOE can. And I quote (Copy & Paste, whatever) from the "SOE Forums Usage Guidelines: The Seven Daily Rules" thread.

"Rule 3: Be Relevant Please stay on topic. These Forums are provided to enable members to help each other in sharing their passion for the game. Please refrain from discussing personal matters, abusing any company or product, or, in general, from posting in a manner unrelated to the direct purposes expected in the Forums."

Here is a nice clicky for you.

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Lamgwin wrote:

"Which you are obviously trying to stoke."

I'm not trying to "stoke" some kind of "flame". I didn't say you said anything about XP. I DO have something constructive to add. You can't tell me not to post here because you take disagreement as some kind of attack. You guys don't LIKE my opinion so you call it a flame. Well if you want to be that way that's fine, there's nothing I can do about it.

All of your ideas for constructive ways to increase the market for combat droids are dreaming. You cannot create a market for combat droids while XP is reduced. You can't do it. You CAN'T do it. And it's obvious if you would just take a moment to examine the evidence. People went nutso over pub22 right?? And why did they do so? Because their XP was reduced.

It was reduced reasonably. It was reduced for the right reasons. It shouldn't have been that high anyway. And yet. ... here we are.

As a DE with a vested interest I have the right to say in a thread about combat droid markets that you are dreaming if you think you can get past the pub22 quitters based on the flimsy reasons for xp reduction. And XP reduction is currently the ONLY facet of combat droids that makes any difference whatsoever.

You cut people's xp. They. WON'T. Buy. Your. Product.

It's simple, it's true, it's fact, and it's not flaming. I resent your assertion that I am trying to stoke a flame. And anyway, the fact that my opinion would stoke a flame in your opinion is an indication of a problem on the part of the would-be flame writers, since apparently their only response to a legitimate criticism or contribution is a flame. I think upon review of the other thread in question you'll find I was more than reasonable and was MORE than unreasonable "flamed" in return.

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Ok, so...back on topic then: Care to add to this thread other than telling me "I'm dreaming" and that you resent me? Can you think of any reasons to make the general public want a combat droid? No? Then there's no reason for you to post here other than further your criticism of me.

I am a shipwright, so as you know, I am limited in what CL I can reach. I have never been a powergrinder, and while xp is important to me, so is staying alive while I go about my daily business (surveying, checking harvs, etc.). Post-CU, if I want to grind, I join a group and go hunting. If I'm tooling about doing crafter type stuff, my trusty combat droid is with me. She has helped me many times avoid being incapped by any number of baddies, and more times she's helped me defeat them.

As someone who is perfectly happy to share XP in exchange for not eating dirt, I say this is your market-- those of us in the game who won't be CL80, because we aren't (necessarily) grinding jedi, and we have other professions we love, whether it's ID, SW, WS, AS, Arch, or whatever. Market to these people-- they may have never considered a combat droid.

(BTW, I got mine as a gift; as I went looking to by droids for other purposes, I found that buying a droid is very complex, much like buying a ship is. I knew a DE and he explained the options to me, but the average gamer doesn't get the nuances. If there's a way to educate your consumers, you'd find more of them)

Just some suggestions/observations from a happy combat droid owner!

Hmm, when I was low CL I used my combat droid when I was working on quests, since XP wasn't really the point. I didn't know about the reduction at that time, but it wouldn't have mattered since I was just trying to survive and finish the quests at hand.

To be honest, my CL 80 character doesn't have much of a need for one other than for roleplaying. I want to have a use for my trusty R2, but there just isn't one right now. My medical and crafting droids are very useful, but sadly my combat droid is reduced to the occasional crafter guard duty now.

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KupyiLabe wrote:
Hmm, when I was low CL I used my combat droid when I was working on quests, since XP wasn't really the point. I didn't know about the reduction at that time, but it wouldn't have mattered since I was just trying to survive and finish the quests at hand.

To be honest, my CL 80 character doesn't have much of a need for one other than for roleplaying. I want to have a use for my trusty R2, but there just isn't one right now. My medical and crafting droids are very useful, but sadly my combat droid is reduced to the occasional crafter guard duty now.

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I think you might be underestimating your old R2. When grouped with a CL80, they actually do pretty decent. And if you have a 110 medical rating in addition, it'll increase your healing while adding to your DPS.

I do find that once someone has a droid then they come back for more - just a case of getting them over that initial threashold.

But combat droids can be useful - I took out an entire Imperial troop with mine!

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GnomeAd wrote:

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KupyiLabe wrote:
Hmm, when I was low CL I used my combat droid when I was working on quests, since XP wasn't really the point. I didn't know about the reduction at that time, but it wouldn't have mattered since I was just trying to survive and finish the quests at hand.

To be honest, my CL 80 character doesn't have much of a need for one other than for roleplaying. I want to have a use for my trusty R2, but there just isn't one right now. My medical and crafting droids are very useful, but sadly my combat droid is reduced to the occasional crafter guard duty now.

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I think you might be underestimating your old R2. When grouped with a CL80, they actually do pretty decent. And if you have a 110 medical rating in addition, it'll increase your healing while adding to your DPS.

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Oh yeah, I love my medical droid (which is not the same as my combat droid, maybe I need to do a custom order). Hmm, I'll give that combat droid another go next time I find a ST squad in the wild or something.

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KupyiLabe wrote:

Oh yeah, I love my medical droid (which is not the same as my combat droid, maybe I need to do a custom order). Hmm, I'll give that combat droid another go next time I find a ST squad in the wild or something.

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Just make sure you're grouped with him. That way he gets the benefit of CL 80 defenses.

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Aerec_Krouse wrote:
Bounty Hunters. They hunt solo, and so would still benefit from a combat droid. Also, if you pop the combat bits in, and leave room for a medical unit, you have the BH/CM FOTM's wet dream of a droid for npc missions - an extra bit of damage AND a nice healing bonus.

I use one especially now I have dropped CM 4000 and gone with medic 0020 in my fighty, shooty toons template (rest of it is MCarbs, M SL, BH 0003). It is great, I refer to it as an extra bleed every combat round

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I'm an mbh and I own 3 "combat droids" that I like, but I have to admit that they have not been of much use in bounty missions. What I found is that if I attack my mark with anything except a probot, it will be instantly destroyed, even if I attack before my droid does. If I use a probot, it will hang back with me, and it survives about 75% of the missions. The problem though is that it really isn't much help. It attacks frequently, but in looking at the combat log, it nearly always misses. And of course when it hits, the damage is around 20-30 or so, which would add up over time, but not when it misses nearly every shot. I haven't bother to quantify exactly what the hit percentage is, but it is LOW, so the dps is minimal.

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Lamgwin wrote:

Zarien, all I can say is to ask them if they know about the XP loss. Each and every one of them. People don't know about. Before I did I bought dozens of combat droids, as did most of the people I play with. Now none of us do. Because of the XP loss. People don't know about it.

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I custom made 3 combat droids for Bounty Hunters this past week. I told eachcustomer they would experience an xp reduction while using the driod in combat. I got the same response (or a variation on a response) from each person: "Who cares? If I need to grind xp I'll go to Dant."

Zarien's post was explicitly about Bounty Hunters using a combat driod for Jedi hunting, these individuals do not care about the xp reduction, no one hunts Jedi for xp. Lower level characters who intend to use the droid to help grind experience solo in lieu of doing so in a group should indeed be told about xp reduction. But I have not run into anyone who fits that description (low pop server I suppose).

As for getting people to want combat driods, I think it is as easy as including combat capability in pre-fab droids. Every customer I have sold/given droids to has wanted to know how to use any/all functions present in the droid, if the combat is there, they will use it and eventually learn how good it really can be in certain situations. (Yes I send a e-mail to each customer I sell a droid to, and explain features and pitfalls.) Once a player has had the combat droid option available to them, they will request it in the future.