Droid Engineer Archive

I would just like to add my pennies-worth to the 'solo hunter' arguement.

My alt is a ranger/CH/BE and I use a combat/medic droid constantly to solo lairs of my CL. The droids are CL30, pets CL15 -20 and I can do CL65 lairs with a combination of trapsand bacta shot to keep the droid up. A friend is Master CH/Master ranger and i made him a combat/storage/trap projectile and he luv's his little buddy.

The key to this is neither of us was really after the xp, just hunting for the fun of the game and there will always be players wanting droids for that purpose.

Those who want droids to get XP for grinding will inevitably give up and join grind groups anyway so are no loss with regards to customers IMHO.

In a game where there is such a clear distinction between 'grinders' and 'players' then the combat droid definately falls into the 2nd groups preferred pet and personally I couldn't be happier for that

One of my concerns is this:

Since players gain an exp reduction, from using the Combat droid, why use it? They are going to slow down buying them enough as it is, Combat droids are the biggest sellers I think next to your BH droids. People will adventually not bother, and I think the DE profession is hurting enough as it is.

Take for example accouple of games, that do the same, you use your pet for example....players would rarely use them if at all..due to the experiance reduction they had. Only in rare occations they would use them, and that is because they where great pets. That LVLED up with you, and improved as you progressed.

Unforutnately here we don't gain a droid as we lvl, droids can not be created over lvl 30, and droids that are already in use can not be improved..People, not all of coarse, will stop bothering and I just, see the DE class here getting more and more of the short end of the stick.

And sorry to say the game is still pretty much soloable with out a droid or a pet. They only make you killing the mob a little faster.

Message Edited by Evu on 09-27-2005 04:24 AM

Message Edited by Evu on 09-27-2005 04:28 AM

As others have mentioned there are 3 main reasons for people to use droids. First, not everyone has combat skills. There are a number of people that don't have so much as novice marksman/brawler, so droids are the only way they can clear away whatever may be hiding around their house, harvestors, or factories. Second, most combat oriented characters (with the exception of Jedi) only need xp for a week or so. After that they've finished their template and the XP reduction plays no role in their thinking. Third, some people just like droids and will use them anyway (for RP reasons if nothing else).

Even though droids "steal exp from you", it'd be nice if there were some elements of creature handler in there and we could train our droids to be a little more effective in combat.

As is:

My crafter, Catius, uses his droid all the time; to clear lairs and to act as a crafting station.

My Jedi: well hes got an R3 in his ETA-2 fighter and an old storage droid (which I found some really old food in and some VKs from my pre-cu pre-Jedi days! ). The firepower output from droids is too low imo to be worth the effort.

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Jenden wrote:
After that they've finished their template and the XP reduction plays no role in their thinking. Third, some people just like droids and will use them anyway (for RP reasons if nothing else).

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Thats good for now, but I do remember that EXP is planed to be changed, in the near future...to make it more of a challenge I guess it should be put for your regular templates.

And I know that not every player is a combat profession, but if you look at the numbers, there are far less non-combat professions out there then your combat. Same goes with your roleplayers, unfortunately.

I guess its something to be watched when its implemented. Unless something is done with the DE profession, by my personal opinion of coarse, I think that this is going to hurt alot.

Now don't get me wrong here, I do think that some changes are needed:

- Players shouldn't gain a bonus group exp with the droid in the group (that I agree with totally)
- Players shouldn't gain exp if they don't do damage and the droid does all the work ((not sure if it works this way, I never tested it personally))

But a player should gain full exp, if a droid is assisting in a battle, and the player is doing damage to the NPC. And I'm not saying this as a grinder. I'm saying this as a roleplayer. There is no reason why someone would have a lack of experiance due to help from another, even though it is a machine.

Message Edited by Evu on 09-27-2005 07:50 PM

Message Edited by Evu on 09-27-2005 07:51 PM